KONDRATYUK OLENA

Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. 

Olena Kondratiuk is a bright and original representative of the female pleiad of contemporary art of Transcarpathia. She was born on 27 March 1958 in Zaporizhzhia. Her first memories of childhood related to art are palette, smell of oil paints, and sketchbook of an amateur artist living in the neighbourhood. The girl visited an art studio where the teacher helped Olena discover her abilities and realize her vocation. After school, she entered the Lviv State Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts and immersed herself in the cultural environment of Lviv. In 1981, she graduated from the institute where she studied on the speciality of fashion design. Her teachers were M. Bezpalkiv, D. Dovboshynskyi, and V. Ovsiichuk. 

After graduation, in 1982 a young artist together with her husband moved to Uzhhorod – a city that fascinated her. Here she got a job of a designer at the Transcarpathian production and sewing complex. Since 1984, Olena was working as a costume designer at Transcarpathian Ukrainian Music and Drama Theatre. At the same time, she was the main artist and production designer of the Transcarpathian puppet theatre. At that time, the artist started an active exhibition activity, became a member of the Youth Association of the Transcarpathian Regional Organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. Then, from 1985 to the 90s – a period of creative activity in the “Art Fund”.

The artist's creative ideas are embodied in various techniques: graphics, stained-glass, paintings. Her favourite genres – landscapes, still lifes and nude art, thanks to the latter, she especially sensibly depicts femininity. Olena Kondratiuk is a master of a successful colour game, which acts as a defining composite element in her works. Looking at the canvases, one can catch the accents of the blue. This colour gives spatial depth and tranquillity to the artist’s paintings. If this is a landscape, then it is inspired by the calmness of the evening or carries the viewers under the open sky of a moonlit night. If this is a female image – various shades of blue create a romantic mood, being eternal to the spiritual beginning.

The rich and contrasting works of the artist are full of imaginative cheerfulness and energy. Female images are mysterious, each has its own unique charm, and they carry chastity and looseness at the same time. Her painting – like a theatrical act, it is always a kind of mystery. The mystery of being, the mystery of a woman, the mystery of love, the mystery of eternity…

In 2010, the artist headed the painting section of the Transcarpathian Organization of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine.

In 2012, Olena Kondratiuk won the Regional Prize named after Y. Bokshai and A. Erdeli in the nomination “painting” for the work “Gates to the past”.

The artist is an active member of the Association of Creative Women of Transcarpathia “New Form” (2000). Under the auspices of the association, Olena Kondratiuk together with her talented colleagues, well-known painters of the region Odarka Dolhosh, Liudmyla Korzh-Radko and Nadiia Ponomarenko successfully exhibited her works at group exhibitions of painting and graphics. Some of the recent ones: “Four Dimensions” (Uzhhorod); “Vereta” (Vinnytsia, Ternopil, Chernivtsi, Rivne); “Under glass” (Uzhhorod).

A PhD. in History of Arts, artist Odarka Dolhosh shared her impressions: “The works of my colleague Olena Kondratiuk lead the viewers to the world of life-affirming present, symbolic secrets in the eternal theme of a woman in love. The author fascinates with emotional content, using a bright and rich colour palette appropriate to the content.”

Olena Kondratiuk is a participant in numerous exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad: regional (since 1982), all-Ukrainian (since 1985), foreign (since 1992), as well as personal – in Uzhhorod, Mukachevo, Kyiv, Lviv, in Slovakia (Michalovce, Medzilaborce, Prešov, Bratislava).

The works of Olena Kondratiuk are kept in the funds of the Museum of Contemporary Art named after Andy Warhol (Medzilaborce), local lore museums (Trebišov, Michalovce), Zemplin Museum (Slovakia), Ivano-Frankivsk Art Museum, Transcarpathian Regional Museum of Art named after Y. Bokshai.

Text: Liudmyla Kozlovska