Veronika Blyzniuchenko had recently been in Portugal when she heard a bird singing. It was a blackbird: "I heard a marvellous song, but I didn't know which bird it was. When I met the blackbird, I started including it in all the gardens I paint. For me, it's a bird that represents the peace I find here."
Already a well-known artist in her country, Veronika left Kharkiv, Ukraine, for Portugal just ten days after the outbreak of war sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was one of the collectors of her work who persuaded her to come to the country.
