The Culture Scene meets Ukrainian painter Oleksandra Novotna as she finds joy making botanical sketches in her adopted home of Dumfries. We learn how she and her now 14-year-old daughter left Lviv at the beginning of the war to settle in the Scottish town. Mother and daughter open up a treasured memory box of Anna’s childhood artworks. The box is one of the few possessions they were able to bring with them, and Anna explains how she takes inspiration from her mum, after all she has been through.

Oleksandra runs an art therapy workshop that has become a lifeline for other Ukrainian women in Dumfries. She gets them painting feathers, creating community and encouraging their creativity and self- expression so that they can temporarily forget the negativity of what is going on at home. Show less