Biography
Svitlana Yevhenivna Kondratenko (born 1962, Kharkiv) is a painter.
1979–1984: Studied at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts (formerly Kharkiv Art and Industrial Institute) specializing in monumental and decorative art under Yevhen Bykov and Oleksandr Khmelnytskyi.
From 1985: Participant in all-Ukrainian and all-Union art exhibitions. Solo exhibitions held in Kyiv (2004, 2006, 2011–2013) and Prague, Czech Republic (2004).
1984–1987: Worked at the Kharkiv Art and Industrial Combine.
From 1988: Independent studio practice.
1989: Member of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine (NUAU).
1999: Awarded the Gold Medal by the European Franz Kafka Society (Prague, Czech Republic).
Lives and works in Kharkiv.
Kondratenko creates Postmodernist paintings featuring allegorical and metaphorical narratives, psychological portraits, as well as realistic lyrical landscapes and still lifes. Her artistic practice is marked by a subtle interplay of meaning and imagery, the use of quotations, and rigorously constructed compositions.
Art historian Dmytro Korsun notes: “…beneath the fairytale-like playfulness and unmediated tone of these fantasy-narratives, one easily detects the rigorous classical tradition of her academic training and a disciplined compositional methodology. These dreamscape paintings possess a subtle, non-intrusive pedagogical quality—a delicate impulse toward a child-like mode of expression, accessibility, exaggeration, grotesque, and a playful chaos of scale and significance. They are captivatingly tender, touching the soul through their exceptional meticulousness and a endearing ‘naivety’ characteristic of a child’s pure, unadulterated perception.
[…] Every painting by the artist shares an undeniable quality: it carries an emotional tension and the convincing illusionism of a dream. At times, this manifests as a heavy, menacing nightmare fraught with internal contradictions and unresolved meanings; at others, as a witty absurdity of released instincts and moods. Behind major events lies an invisible, infantile game, while behind lighthearted play lurks the frozen mask of a Greek tragedy, forever hardened by dramatic tension.”
A blend of irony and tragedy permeates the work Premonition [Peredchuttya] (oil on canvas, 1991; transferred to the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum collection by the Directorate of Artistic Exhibitions of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine in 1992). Despite its absurd narrative and biting grotesque, the work evokes an obsessively anxious state, as a premonition of danger from unknown, impending events takes hold of a person like a bird of prey.
Kondratenko, along with the entire generation of artists who emerged in Ukraine during the late 1980s, underwent a transformation brought about by the traumatic experience of a collapsing epoch.
“The response to the disintegration of the Soviet system was unique in its own right—it birthed an unexpected social syndrome of carnivalesque reflexivity. On one hand, it induced widespread societal depression; on the other, a humorous reflection on the cataclysm of an ‘indestructible system.’ What was once terrifying became clumsy and ridiculous. Irony as an artistic device and an effective means of expression indeed dominates Svitlana Kondratenko’s painting, even when depicting a righteous figure set against a majestic landscape. From this irony stems the unique, personally vibrating texture of the environment in her works—flickering, anxious, volatile, and wary—offering no one any certainty.” (Dmytro Korsun).
Despite the fluid plot that eludes precise definition, the work’s compositional and coloristic execution is robust and persuasive. Against a monochromatic, bright yellow sky and epic terracotta mountains accented with impasto passages, a golden-haired maiden in an elegant blue-and-yellow gown is depicted in a majestically serene posture with a detached gaze. The ceremonial, celebratory nature of this portrait of an unknown maiden, reminiscent of a medieval princess, is completely disrupted by the unexpectedly realistic depiction of an eagle perched atop her head. The presence of the massive predator with talons appears not to disturb the young woman at all. It leaves the impression that the bird is merely her visual dream—or, conversely, that she is a dream envisioned by the eagle. Alternatively, the predator may embody her internal anxiety—a premonition of the unknown, unexperienced, and therefore terrifying future.
Ultimately, Svitlana Kondratenko leaves her work open to interpretation. Transavantgarde theorist Achille Bonito Oliva compared contemporary works of art to labyrinths, noting that they are created so that the viewer may wander among interpretations for as long as possible without settling on any single one, continually revising previous conclusions.
