A Ukrainian mum who fled her home in search of safety as Russian forces invaded her country is hosting a remarkable art exhibition in The Smithy.

Oleksandra Novatska has been living in Dumfries with her 13-year-old daughter, Anna Romanyuk, for seven months, with the pair having left everyone and everything they loved in Lviv.

Faraway From Ukraine to UK: A Tribute opened on Friday November 4th and will run until November 11th.

It reflects the story of Oleksandra and more than six million other women and children who were forced to leave their homeland and seek security thousands of miles away as the war began.

She said: “I packed my whole life in the car's boot and we went to an unknown country. It was a difficult solution in which I should protect my child, and her dad protects Ukraine.”

Money raised at the exhibition will be sent to support a recognised organisation working on the humanitarian effort in Ukraine.

**Oleksandra and Anna with one of the paintings which features as part of the exhibition at The Smithy. Studio photographs courtesy of Graeme Robertson**

Oleksandra, who is an artist and gallery curator in her homeland, has been creating pieces for the exhibition at the Riverside Tap on Friars Vennel, courtesy of by Beer Without Borders founder Andrew Pearson.

Explaining how life has changed for her and others who fled, Oleksandra explained: “We are trying to recreate a past life. But, deep down, we understand that everything has changed.

“My life - our lives - will never be the same again, regardless of whether we create a new home here in Scotland or in our previous homes in Ukraine, because the war has destroyed everything that made our lives there.

“It's hard to accept. Words can’t describe these feelings. The war broke all of our lives into fragments and I’m trying to piece them back together.

“This is a new world. Here we have to create our whole life from scratch.”

**Oleksandra with one of the scrolls on display in The Smithy**

The exhibition features paintings, as well as paper scrolls which symbolise traditional Ukrainian embroidered towels, with work reflecting the fluctuating emotions Oleksandra has felt since leaving Lviv - from despair to happiness.

“Before the war I painted flowers and loved my life,” she said. “After the invasion I tried to draw flowers but I couldn't. I did not have bright joyful emotions that I could share with people. On one of those hard days, I took a pencil in my hand and automatically started shading with black.

“This is how this story began. From these black strokes, the artworks Great Britain, Scotland and Ukraine appeared. At first there was no colour and everything seemed to be in shades of grey, but the colour started to reappear and that was the beginning of my recovery.”

Since ancient times, women in Ukraine have been embroidering towels. The tradition has been passed down the generations, which inspired work to symbolise them on paper scrolls.

Oleksandra added: The tree of life - family history - was embroidered on these towels. Therefore it is logical for me to place part of the exhibition on paper scrolls.

“These scrolls symbolise our traditional embroidered towels on which I tell our story.”

Faraway From Ukraine to UK: A Tribute will be open at The Smithy, 113-115 High Street, between 11am and 5pm from Saturday November 5th until Friday November 11th (every day apart from Monday November 7th)