Vladimir Budnikov looks at ordinary things, watches how the view of them changes over time. The main themes for him in the specified period of creating drawings on paper were the village and the Crimea, where both artists spent a lot of time in the year before the annexation. It is interesting that the artist painted (this is not typical for him) absolutely specific places of the Crimea, but depicted them transparent, like ghosts. Budnikov also painted a lot of home still lifes, which became a kind of repository for him when there were no more safe places left. Gradually, the images of still lifes and explosions began to mix and match. “Drawing on paper has become almost the most important language for me lately. The intensity of my work on paper reached a special tension precisely during the crisis, because the language of the drawing was then almost the only one capable of telling about what was happening inside, outside the events that immediately after the beginning of the revolution and the war literally blinded us... The drawing on paper always seems to be open in all directions at the same time, it transmits the most dangerous reality. I am attracted by the ability of paper to store information. One has only to draw a simple line — and it will instantly absorb all the knowledge about the surrounding reality.” Volodymyr Budnikov