About

Bio: Ira Bondarenko is an emerging artist, a native of Ukraine. Ira is an MFA candidate at the University of Michigan. Her ceramic work has been featured in over a dozen National and International Ceramic competitions. Recently, Ira received two arts grants from the University of Michigan supporting her multimedia installations and International exhibitions that she organized.

Artist Statement: In my work, I seek to understand how beauty and injury can coexist in a space and amplify each other. I’m interested in the endangered, vulnerable qualities of an object that speak not only of injury but also of resilience and beauty. I’m searching for ways to convey the tension brought by this duality and to capture it by pushing the fragility of ceramic surfaces to the limit, building large works as constellations of smaller forms, and using text as references to humanity. 

I’m Ukrainian-American, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made me search for a visual vocabulary to express the pain of loss,  anger, and the spirit of resilience. My artwork encompasses the need to process and convey these experiences. The themes of fragility and resilience, guardianship and injury, and the motif of the Phoenix- destruction and rebirth, drive my art practice.