Ladyzhets Olha

Member of the Union of Designers of Ukraine, member of the Union of Folk Craftsmen.

She was born in Uzhhorod in 1980. She has been fond of painting since her childhood. She painted her first oil painting with her grandfather on the plein air when she was 4. It was a landscape. Her grandfather Volodymyr was a famous Transcarpathian writer, but he was extremely fond of painting. It was his hobby, thus he instilled the love for painting in his granddaughter. At the age of 15, Olha entered Art College where her teacher was a famous artist, sculptor Ivan Masniuk. Afterwards, she studied at the Lviv Academy of Arts.

In her creativity, she chose ceramics at once. Studying at the Academy, she participated in vernissages and exhibited her works. After her lectures, she worked in a studio near the High Castle. She practised at specialized plants – in Korosten, Slavuta and others. Everywhere they noted her talent and offered a job after completing her studies. “When I was a student, I sold my work and I felt that people liked my works. It pushed me to further development,” the artist says.

Upon graduation, Olha was offered a job in the Uzhhorod centre of scientific and technical creativity – there was a position of the “teacher of ceramics”. “Thus, I started teaching children and I quickly found a common language with them,” the artist said. “Both work and communication with children are extremely amazing. Thus, I was almost retrained, I studied the necessary literature and started working with seriously ill children. For many of them, ceramics, as it turned out, is a true salvation. As clay is like an absorbent that pulls out all the negative things. This is an extremely important component of children rehabilitation”. That’s how psychology became one of the main hobbies of the artist.

In general, the artist calls the work with children an inexhaustible source, in which one can always find unique ideas. “I really like watching children, because they are so direct and sincere that one should only watch and repeat after them. That's why, I often depict children's laughter, as,” the artist says.

Olha Ladyzhets is not limited to ceramics – she also experiments in various art forms: she paints on oil on canvas and cold glaze, often experimenting with different techniques. Thus, her paintings can be with elements of ceramics, ceramic panels on a wood, she likes pseudo-stained glass – drawing on the glass with special paints. She is often engaged in interior design.

The artist's works are extremely feminine, gentle, sincere and positive. A moment that she managed to capture like a firebird by the tail, the artist passes through her vision of the world, her sense of beauty and reveals it in her canvases or ceramics, glass, in whatever's to hand. That is why, every work lives its own life, as well as animals or fish created by Olha, have their own character and emotions (“A Fish Man”, “Love Is Blind”, “A Ballerina”). It is felt that the master is in love with her work – every element is carved or painted with extraordinary care and thoughtfulness. There is nothing superfluous – there is only a feeling that such ingenuous little girls, beautiful wizards, fragile angels, cats and fishes should be in the interior of the house where a happy family lives.

Olha Ladydzhets has been a participant in the collective and regional exhibitions since 1998. In 2000, Olha was a participant in the Pottery Festival in Opishnia village (Poltava region).

The first personal exhibition of the artist was held in Uzhhorod at the “Art Pro” gallery in July 2018. “Within two weeks, I managed to prepare the exhibition, although nobody believed that I would succeed,” Olha says. “I saw that people like my creativity and that's good.”

In addition to ceramics and painting, Olha is a well-known book illustrator. Since 1996, she has been co-operating with the publishing house “Karpaty”. Her works can be seen in the publications “Grain of Wisdom”, “The Cup of Kindness”, “The Secrets of Fir Tree Castle”, etc.

Her works are stored in private collections of Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada and other countries.