Refuge - the state of being safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or difficulty.

Every season, here at 1605 Publishers, we create a list of artists from the fields of art, photography, cinema and architecture that bring us a fresh wave of inspiration. The spring is almost here and with the current events, we know that it will be turbulent and disquiet but on the other hand, also courageous and resilient. On the 24 of February 2022, Russia violently invaded Ukraine and announced war. Since then, in only 20 days, 3 million people have fled Ukraine and are still fleeing.

Our spring palette is dedicated to the artists from the countries that account for the most refugees in the world today. Among them Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Ukraine.

Sonia Delaunay (1885 – 1979) - Ukrainian painter from Odesa. She co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. She was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964.

Roman Bondarchuk (b. 1982) - Ukrainian filmmaker from Kherson, the author of the movie "Volcano" (2018) that examines the lives of people on the southern Ukrainian steppe who live in anarchic freedom, seemingly forgotten by the outside world. The film has been noted for its stunning visuals and a documentary feel attained through cinéma vérité techniques and the casting of non-actors.

Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964) - Ukrainian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist from Kyiv. He was one of the first to apply the principles of Cubism to architecture, analyzing human figure into geometrical forms.

Aboozar Amini (b.1985) - Afghan filmmaker, based in the Netherlands. The author of "Kabul, city in the wind". Amini studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. His movie "Kabul, city in the wind" portrays the capital of Afghanistan through daily details of two kids and a bus driver, set against the background of a city destroyed by politics and religious powers.

Safwan Dahoul (b. 1961) - a painter from Hama, Syria. Dahoul is known for his melancholic and monochromatic works that present influences from the Cubist style of Picasso ranging to Assyrian and Pharaonic art. Since the late 1980s, the artist began an ongoing body of work investigating the dream state. These works have explored the physical and psychological effects of alienation, solitude, and longing that punctuate the human experience at various stages in life.

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe (b. 1971) - a painter form Myanmar, based in the Netherlands. Yawnghwe’s painting and installation practice engages politics with reference to his family history as well as current and historical events in his country. Family photographs also provide the basis for a pictorial language through which he explores events in the country, suggesting that existing and available archives cannot reveal a nation’s entire truth.