Anna Bondar

According to contemporary Ukrainian painter Anna Bondar (b. Kyiv), her works constitute a spiritual search for harmony. Initially trained as a realist painter, Bondar soon realized that the canons of the classical school of painting didn’t reflect her ideas about contemporary art. She began experimenting with genres, techniques, and materials, eventually turning towards her own unique version of abstract painting. 

Sonya: A Sunflower Network Project proudly features Bondar’s Podil (2021), one of the show’s pre-invasion works and evidence of Bondar’s shifting focus away from figurative painting towards the abstract. Here, the two styles combine in stunning fashion - Bondar conveys the feeling of a beautiful day in one of Kyiv’s oldest and most culturally important neighborhoods with a swirling sky where pink and purple meet blue and white. The sky sits above a highway and a skyline of Podil’s architecture, painted seemingly as it was seen.

Like all of the pre-invasion works in the exhibition, Podil has taken on new meaning in the past year. Today, the painting feels nostalgic of a time when Kyiv was beautiful and safe, before constant fear of attack and massive outages of power.

At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Bondar was newly pregnant and living in Kyiv. When she attempted to visit her doctor for a check-in, she discovered that the clinic had been bombed. For the safety of her baby, Bondar left Kyiv and relocated to Marbella, Spain, where she has created over 100 new works.

Bondar’s work has been exhibited throughout Ukraine, as well as at the 2021 Other Art Fair in Dallas, Texas and in the 2022 Art of Ukraine Gala in Denver, Colorado.