Don’t Cry, My Mother, by Sergii Radkevych

Sergii Radkevych’s work appears in some of the most unlikely places in Ukraine—on abandoned buildings, the exterior walls of run-down properties, and “public spaces that have lost their function.” Merging street art, iconography, and abstraction, he spray-paints icons of Jesus and other religious images—a hand of blessing, the keys of St. Peter, the eyes of angels—that harmonize surprisingly with a reclaimed space.  He calls these works “interventions” and says they are intended to “shift the meaning of the space they occupy.” Not only does he shift the meaning of spaces, he shifts our understanding of where sacred images belong.