Tanya Kornienko

I’m Tanya Kornienko. I came to Madrid in March 2022, after the war forced me to leave Ukraine. I’ve been an artist my whole life, and today I work remotely from Spain as a children’s-book sales manager for Egmont Ukraine Publishing House — while devoting the rest of my time to illustration.

My project, Tanya Kornienko Art, began almost by accident during the quarantine three years ago. I started with a playful series of book-loving cats and portraits of friends — and before long, people were asking for their own portraits, drawings, and printed T-shirts.

As the war reshaped everything, so did my work. New illustrations poured out of that time, among them a series close to my heart: the Mermaids-Warriors of the Black Sea.

That belief led me to two illustrated books — one about kayaking in Kyiv, another about hiking in the Ukrainian Carpathians — and, more recently, to a series of portraits of the women artists who inspire me. That last project is really a way of retracing my own path, and answering a simple question: why do I do what I do?

Now I’m looking for ways to share this work more widely — to exhibit it, so that as many people as possible can see it and, through it, come to know Ukraine. Alongside my illustrations, I also create custom bags, T-shirts, and mugs featuring my artwork.