OPENING RECEPTION
Wednesday, March 8, 5:30 - 8:30 PM

1313 N Market

1313 North Market
Wilmington, DE 19801

“I believe it’s important for humans to connect authenticallywith each other, as we are essentially one within humanity.”

Stories have been an essential element in Ola Rondiak’s life. Stories of her family’s experience living in Ukraine; stories from her maternal grandmother, Paraskevia Michniak; stories that are woven into Rondiak’s life and her art. As the artist explains, her grandmother was arrested by Joseph Stalin’s secret service following the second Russian invasion of Ukraine during World War II. She was imprisoned from 1947 until 1956, and during that time embroidered religious icons. Rondiak uses this particular story of resilience in the face of oppression to connect to the universal struggle for equality. 

Rondiak’s practice includes drawing, collage, painting, sculpture, and garments. Across these forms she incorporates collective images drawn from Ukrainian culture. Imagery is derived from the Motanka doll, a talisman in rag doll form with a cross stitched across the face. The cross shape is one of power and grounding, symbolic of the wholeness of life—the four cardinal points, the four seasons, the sun. Rondiak pairs this form with other cultural objects of significance such as the vinok, the Ukrainian flower crown, created from layers of magazines and newspapers. This node to the contemporary situates Rondiak’s pantheon of matriarchs in the present day, a host of deities from which to draw solidarity and strength. These are the spirits on which Rondiak’s War Women must call. These are intimate works on paper, created after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Rondiak conveys the women’s vulnerability and resistance with her deft charcoal marks. She elicits a kind of bodily empathy, an understanding of the physical reality of existing in conflict. Throughout these series, Rondiak displays an impression in her range of imagery, from angular contours to gestural lines. In this duality we find the complexity of human existence. 

Ola Rondiak started her professional career as a social worker, counselor, and psychotherapist following degrees in psychology, education, and clinical psychology. She moved to Ukraine in 1995 and began her artistic pursuits in painting and sculpture. Through an expanded and diverse creative practice, Rondiak mines her personal and ancestral experiences in Ukraine. Rondiak’s bold compositions draw inspiration from historical events, religious iconography, and traditional Ukrainian cultural objects, among others. The artist has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions throughout the Northeast United States and Ukraine. In 2018, Rondiak’s Identity Interrupted was presented at Tauvers Gallery International (Kyiv), Ukrainian Institute of American (New York), Tri-Mission Art Gallery at the US Embassy in Rome, Dzyga Gallery (Lviv), and Honchar Museum (Kyiv). Her 2019 solo exhibition, All the Same?, travelled throughout Ukraine at Gallery RA (Kyiv), Museum of National Decorative Arts (Kaniv), and Taras Shevchenko Museum (Kaniv). Recent solo projects have been held at Ukraine House (Washington, DC), John William Gallery (Wilmington, DE), and The Gallery o.d.o. (New York), and Rondiak’s work has been presented at Context Art Miami, Palm Beach Modern and Contemporary, and Clio Art Fair. In 2020, Rondiak’s two-venue, United States and Ukraine exhibition, Metempsychosis, included a live panel discussion between audiences at the Revolution of Dignity Museum (Kyiv) and WhiteBoxHarlem (New York) hosted by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. In 2018, Rondiak received the Award for Excellence from the Conception Global Art Collective. Most recently, Ola was invited as the keynote speaker to The Institute of Modern Art in Chicago where she was given an award recognizing her “Significant contributions to cultural diplomacy and promoting Ukraine to the world through her art.” Her work can be found in the collections of the Revolution of Dignity Museum, the Ukrainian Embassy in Bern, the Ukrainian Embassy in Paris, Shevchenko Museum (Kyiv), the National Museum of Decorative Arts (Kaniv), and numerous private collectors.

Rondiak has had interviews in the following venues: CNN, CBS, NBC, PBS, ABC, Atlantic Council, Elegant New York, Fashion of Diplomacy, ICTV & Hromadske Ukrainian TV interviews. She participated in Context Art Miami in 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022, and Palm Beach Modern + Contemporary in 2022; Art Palm Beach 2023 and LA Art Show 2023.