Ola Rondiak

Ola Rondiak was born in the United States in 1966. She earned her Baccalaureate Degree in Psychology and Education at Hunter College in NYC. After working as a social worker in Brooklyn, she went on to receive her Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and Community Counseling. Mostly self-taught, she also studied art in Ukraine and Hungary. Ola and her husband, Petro, began their journey in Ukraine together in 1995. Ola's parents had emigrated from Ukraine during WWII and had raised her with a love and curiosity for her roots. Ola and Petro currently reside in Kyiv with their daughter Maya and their dogs, Dolya and Ami, while their son Roman and daughter Kalyna have moved back to America. She works between her studios in Kyiv and New York City.

Ola's work has been featured in group and solo exhibits, most recently at Zorya Fine Art Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut, The Delaware Contemporary (Wilmington, DE), The Ukrainian National Museum in Chicago, Ukrainian Museum-Archives in Cleveland, the American Embassy in Kyiv, Ukrainian Embassy in Berlin, and the Nymphenburg Castle in Munich, Germany. Upcoming exhibits include Tauvers Gallery International in Kyiv, Ukraine, Ukrainian Institute of America in NYC, and the American Embassy in Rome, Italy. Many of her works have been auctioned at charitable events.

This catalog features Ola's recent work from her new series Identity, Interrupted, which stems from her personal story of growing up in the USA with a Ukrainian identity and how this identity was challenged when she actually began day to day life in a newly independent, 1990’s Ukraine.