The European Cartoon Center opens the new year with the exhibition Peace Despite the War, dedicated to the Ukrainian cartoonist Oleksy Kutsovsky (KUSTO).
His cartoons grow out of familiar, human situations — images from everyday life, even when that life is marked by war.
KUSTO was born in Kyiv in 1971, graduated as an agricultural engineer, and has been working as a cartoonist and illustrator since 1998.
His first cartoons appeared in Ukrainian newspapers, but his work soon found its way to international stages. Today he is among the most acclaimed cartoonists of his generation.
His work has been awarded in countries such as China, Poland, Brazil, and Slovakia. Here in Belgium, he won the Bronze Hat at the Knokke-Heist festival in 2024, and in 2025 he received the ECC Prize at the 25th Euro‑Kartoenale Kruishoutem — an honour that forms the starting point for this exhibition.
Peace Despite the War invites visitors to see wartime cartoons as far more than depictions of misery: as an art form that offers a glimpse of the hope and resilience of people who simply carry on.
