Kseniya Simonova's Amazing Sand Drawing (VIDEO)

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

For more on the artist, read this Guardian profile.


WATCH:

Comments

[Celeste Frazier]

10:02 PM on 08/22/2009

This is Divine Creativity and this young lady has totally opened herself up to the Creative Process. It is amazing and inspiring. It is one of the most incredible art that I have seen. All the best to and for this young lady.

[Roman Wojtow]

12:52 AM on 08/22/2009

Very beautiful and talented. But why is a show that is called "Ukraine has Talent" spoken and judged in the Russian language? Although the title is written in Ukrainian....

[LiberalBuzz]

06:22 PM on 08/17/2009

VERY impressive. Well done with a remarkable emotional impact.

[electricsquirrel]

01:32 PM on 08/16/2009

QUOTE:

"I decided to take part in the competition “Ukraina Mae Talant!” to help Nika. The little girl is 9 months old now, six months of which she has spent in coma because of the meningitis. I learnt about that child from a notice in the street where there was a request for help. Now the baby-girl is in the resuscitation department of a Kiev hospital (Ukraine). The girl’s mother complains that the doctors want to discharge the baby from hospital“.

She's also the mom of a 1-year old.

[PopulistPagan]

01:46 PM on 08/16/2009

Talent and empathy, that is why she is beautiful to me.

Not to mention her eyes.

[PopulistPagan]

01:24 PM on 08/16/2009

WICKED! A wonderfully beautiful talent and a wonderful story teller!

Metallica rocks!

What did she write at the end? what does it mean? Any Ukrainians out there?

[Liliya Brantley]

10:07 PM on 08/16/2009

She wrote: "You are always near"

[robbyJ]

02:10 AM on 08/16/2009

Way to make a living playing with sand. Where do I sign up?

[PimpOmega]

10:54 AM on 08/16/2009

It requires talent, skill, and imagination; thingsI doubt you have. :P

[mizdeeva]

12:31 AM on 08/16/2009

I've watched this three times already. Stunningly amazing!

[azhar99]

10:37 PM on 08/15/2009

People in the audience were crying because of the memories of the World War II evoked by the drawings. It was the artist's aim to remember and pay tribute to the people of USSR whose lives were tragically affected by that war. Millions were killed, displaced and forever parted from their loved ones. It's been over half a century since the end of the war, but the memories still live in people's hearts and the pain is still acutely felt.
I am not from Ukraine, but from another former Soviet republic. The war is our shared history, because it affected all of the Soviet Union.

[alby91]

08:52 PM on 08/15/2009

wow that was incredibly amazing

[ibsteve2u]

07:54 PM on 08/15/2009

Huh. Except for the parts where she moved sand, I could do that.

[dhinds]

08:35 PM on 08/15/2009

You're joking - it was ALL done moving sand (and looking beautiful).

[robbyJ]

02:18 AM on 08/16/2009

hahaha YOU CAN WOAAAA

[MossyOak]

04:54 PM on 08/15/2009

Amazing. The speed with which she worked made it even more amazing than the result.

[SpikeC]

03:34 PM on 08/15/2009

Wow. Just astounding. My first thought was about Buddhist sand painting, but this takes working with sand into a whole new dimension while retaining the impermanent dynamic.

[ajspinach]

03:22 PM on 08/15/2009

Absolutely fabulous. She is pretty and the candle, music did create and enhance the whole experience. But then again, so what? Is this not what the arts is supposed to do? The drawing is fabulous and the transformation demonstrated in front of our eyes gives us a peak into the working of an artistic mind. I love it.

[Tabasco]

02:20 PM on 08/15/2009

Most of us witness this kind of thing only a few times in our lives.

As a commercial and fine artist, I'm absolutely floored. I wept with the audience.

[robbyJ]

02:12 AM on 08/16/2009

It's sand. Shes good, but it's not a whole lot more than, sad sand faces and music, and actually I've seen better.

[Matthew Siegel]

01:40 PM on 08/15/2009

Stunning, absolutely stunning. Don't understand why people are critical of anything here or seem to need to comment why people were crying - this is about world war 2..........