A personal exhibition of paintings by Kseniia Bondarenko “In the Direction of Dreams” presents the creative work of the winner of the Grand Prix Diploma of the First Biennale of Naïve Art and Primitivism “Velour Cat” named after Andrii Lipatov to All-Ukrainian Day of Cultural Worker and Folk Art Masters” organized by O.O.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum in 2020. The exposition of the exhibition is displayed in the Art Gallery “Our Town” in Svitlovodsk, the Kirovohrad Oblast.
    Kseniia Bondarenko was born in 1985 in Kirovohrad (now Kropyvnytskyi). She spent her childhood in Svitlovodsk. Graduated from Svitlovodsk Polytechnic College of Central Ukrainian National Technical University, majoring in Enterprise Economics (2005) and Kharkiv Academic and Research Institute of the University of Banking Management (2009).
    Since 2015, she started to participate in public life in Svitlovodsk as a co-organizer of art events – Festival of Tourism “Bright Town”, “Art Descent”, “Easter Tree”, “Parade of Strollers”. Between 2016-2021, has been working as a methodologist of decorative and applied art in Svitlovodsk District Community Center. Since 2016, has been the head and curator of the Public Organization Art Gallery “Our Town” in Svitlovodsk.
    First lessons in painting had from the painter Viktor Tovkailo. Visited the studio of Nataliia Boichuk and Viktor Chumachenko in Svitlovodsk. Later, had private lessons from a painter, a member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine Oleksandr Demydenko in Kropyvnytskyi. According to the artists: “The creative Demydenko family, Oleksandr and Liudmyla, laid the foundation of love for art and desire to improve”.
    “An important part in the art shaping of Kseniia Bondarenko as a painter belongs to the creative work with famous Ukrainian artist, a member of the National Union of Artist of Ukraine Volodymyr Tovkailo. After perfectly studying his art methods, she starts her own path, creative images of special, enigmatic inner strain. Her compositions combine elements of city Naïve, which can be brightly seen in the themes and plots, Primitivism, which is reflected in the archaic decorative expression, and achievements of professional painting which helped her to speak the language of color fluently and use it with clear, open sounding in her paintings. These factors were determinative in awarding Kseniia Bondarenko’s works the Grand Prix Diploma of the First Biennale of Naïve Art and Primitivism “Velour Cat” named after Andrii Lipatov to All-Ukrainian Day of Cultural Worker and Folk Art Masters” organized by O.O.Osmerkin Art-Memorial Museum in 2020”, - mentioned the leading researcher of the museum, art history expert, curator of the Biennale, Merited Artist of Ukraine Andrii Nadezhdin in the booklet to the exhibition.
    It is the first personal exhibition of the amateur artist Kseniia Bondarenko. It presents 26 author’s paintings created between 2016-2021 which brightly demonstrate the path of the development of the artist’s creative personality from traditional landscape and still life motifs to complicated compositional searches.
“I like to find new compositions in the chaos of things; when you work with a brush as if with a magic stick and you know the way how from various paints make a pictorial story with images standing in a harmonious painting line and turned into viewers’ thoughts”, - this is the way Kseniia Bondarenko characterizes her creative work.