Glory of Peony Painting

Uliana Kondratyuk was born in Kyiv in a family of doctors. Mayher Olena is an artist as well, who liked taking little Uliana for walks in an autumn park, where they collected beautiful leaves and then drew them. Among Uliana’s well-known relatives is Julian Tarnowych, her grandfather, an artist, ethnographer, publicist, who lived and worked in Canada in the last years of his life and now there is museum of his art. Uliana started painting very early, her parents noticed her propensity to draw, and they entered her in the evening school of drawing by Mykolai Semenyuk. Her educational path she continued in the studio of famouse artists. Uliana graduated from the gymnasium of Eastern languages, where she learned Japanese and Arabic languages and was interested Asian culture. Then she continued her studying at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture where she obtained a Master`s degree. There she met a brilliant artist and a pedagogue Alexander Yakovlevich Borovikov, who taught her SaintPetersburg drawing school. This man is the embodiment of great modesty and great depth of wisdom. Every day after classes Uliana came to her respectable teacher, who was 80 years old, and they talked a lot about art on different topics: God, philosophy, music, painting, the combination of colors, teaching methods. Every her holiday Uliana spent in village with grandmother Zina. Granny loved flowers very much and planted the whole field with flowers, and created a real paradise near her house. From early spring to late autumn, it was a joy to see various flowers: crocuses, snowdrops, tulips, lilies, gladioluses, irises, golden daisy, asters and other flowers. Uliana was inspired by this beauty and a range of colors and painted all days from morning till evening. Grandmother and granddaughter went together to choose landscapes for paintings, walked together at 4 o'clock in the morning to observe the sunrise. Grandmother taught Uliana to love animals and nature, feel its beauty, care for it. Faithful friends of Uliana’s were Ksyusha the cat and Amur the dog, who grew up with Uliana since she was 5 years old, they taught her kindness and courage. Grandmother has invested a lot of her love in Uliana, and that is why she devoted the first exhibition in Kyiv to her, which was called Grandmother’s Dreams.