Yevgenia Bondareva | Symbiotic Drift
Yevgenia Bondareva is a Belarus-born artist based in Oud-Turnhout, Belgium. With a background in psychology and figurative painting, her practice investigates how pain, control, and imposed norms inscribe themselves onto the female body. She works with charged materials — from attributes of femininity to children’s clothing — where beauty and care often conceal violence. Through painting, collage, objects, and video, she reveals what is culturally repressed or overlooked.
Bondareva’s work also draws on archetypal images of womanhood, from prehistoric figures to contemporary beauty rituals. Influenced by Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy, she considers the body as a cultural construct — a site where imposed forms of “becoming a woman” collide with the pursuit of inner freedom. Her technical mastery in pastel, recognized internationally by the Master Circle of the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS, 2024), underpins a shift toward conceptual exploration and psychologically charged statements.
The Weight of Expectations, 2025, sculpture, clay, 5 × 5.5 × 3.5 in
Paleo-Femininity, 2024, collage, paper
Courtesy of the artist
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