The Story of Odessa
Miami, FL — Every commissioned painting I create begins the same way: I ask the person to choose four colours that feel like them. Then I stop thinking.
Painting, for me, feels like tuning into a person through colour. Somewhere between concentration and prayer, I let the flow take over.
Most of the time, those four colours don’t agree with each other at first. They compete, clash, and pull the composition in different directions, almost like different sides of the same person arguing over who gets to be in charge. My job is simply to keep listening until they eventually find common ground.
Odessa came from someone whose relationship with colour already told a story.
Black meant comfort. Pink carried a newly discovered permission to be playful and vulnerable. Muddy green marked the long transition from surviving to living. Deep burgundy held constant vigilance, anxiety, and the instinct to prepare for the worst.
The painting understood all of that.
It began quietly. The background turned into one of the most beautiful I had ever mixed. The first composition felt delicate, almost timid. Then it dried... and disappeared. The background swallowed it whole.
Odessa, 2026 creation process
When I returned to the canvas, everything changed.
The colours started fighting with an intensity I had never seen before. Layer after layer, they resisted each other so fiercely that I became convinced I had ruined the painting. For a while, the process felt less like painting and more like watching an argument unfold between different parts of the same person.
Then, almost without warning, the conflict resolved itself. The colours finally accepted each other’s existence.
What emerged felt strong, passionate, wayward, and brave. A personality made of contradictions that somehow holds together anyway.
Sometimes a painting tells you more about a person than words ever could.
View the artwork page: https://bondartmiami.com/soul-collection/odessa
Odessa, 2026. Artwork by Tatyana Bondarenko. Acrylics on 30”x40” gallery-wrapped canvas.
