Ukrainian-American Gothic

Family Tree with Ukrainian Roots

While I’ve painted more family tree illustrations than I can count for others it took me forever to paint one for my family. My dad was hinting for over a decade that I should do one for him and my mom. Finally, (right before their anniversary) I took the hint! We are Ukrainian and are very proud of our heritage. So I knew I had to incorporate our roots into the artwork. I also wanted to make our family tree illustration humorous and fun.

One of my favorite paintings is Grant Wood’s “American Gothic”. I thought it’d be funny to paint my parents as the farmer and his daughter. People think it’s supposed to be his wife in the painting. But it’s actually his daughter. Regardless of the supposed connection between the two, I figured it’d be a good fit for my folks’ family tree.  Of course, I had to put my own spin on it.

I painted my dad in a traditional Ukrainian shirt but kept the farmer’s overalls. Since Ukrainians love their pickles and pirogi I put both on the pitchfork he’s holding. For my mom, I replaced the image of the woman on the brooch with a trident, a symbol that represents Ukraine.  Because my mom is a tailor I painted her holding a spool of thread.  I replaced the original house in Wood’s “American Gothic” painting with our family home.

Directly behind my parents, I painted a field with sunflowers. Sunflowers are very popular in Ukraine and are often depicted in Ukrainian art. On each side of my parents, I painted frames with black and white photos of their parents. I also added all of our pets past and present to the artwork. The ones that passed are up in the sky.  The ones still living are on the tree branches next to me and my son.