engagement
Every encounter begins differently. Every relationship becomes part of the same continuing practice.
Paintings rarely become part of our lives by accident.
Sometimes a collector recognises a place they thought had been left behind. Sometimes a conversation begins with a landscape that still refuses to let go. Sometimes an organisation is looking not simply for original artwork, but for an artist willing to explore the history, identity and memory of a place alongside the people who know it best.
Over time, Bodnar’s practice has expanded beyond the studio through these conversations. Original watercolour paintings find homes in private collections. Commissioned paintings grow from places that have shaped someone’s life. Research projects develop with organisations interested in heritage, landscape and community. Public conversations, slow walks and drawing sessions invite people to experience familiar places with renewed attention.
Although these encounters take different forms, they all begin in the same way. With curiosity. With a place that continues to matter. With a conversation that would not have existed without art.
Whether you are looking to collect original artwork, commission a painting, develop a research project or begin a conversation about a place that deserves to be explored differently, each becomes another chapter in the same ongoing practice.
ALIYA BODNAR
A contemporary artist working primarily in watercolour To explore the ideas behind this body of work, you can also read my Practice.
01. COLLECT
Original artwork can enter a collection for very different reasons. Sometimes it is the subject that first holds attention. Sometimes it is a memory, a place, a colour or simply the feeling that the painting continues to return to you after you have left it.
Original watercolour paintings are available to collect directly from the studio. The Portfolio brings together works at the centre of my current practice, while the Catalogue offers a wider selection of original paintings created over recent years.
If a particular work stays with you, you can contact me directly to ask about its availability, price, framing or delivery. Works shown in both the Portfolio and Catalogue can be purchased directly from me when available.
For collectors who prefer to purchase through an established art platform, a selection of original artwork is also available through Saatchi Art.
02. PLACES BETWEEN
A commissioned painting exploring the place that shaped your life.
Which place changed you?
There are places that remain with us long after we leave them. A street we still know by heart. A house that no longer belongs to us. A landscape connected to a particular period of life. A city we left and continue to carry with us. Sometimes the place still exists exactly as we remember it. Sometimes returning is no longer possible.
Places Between begins with that place and the story that makes it yours.
You share what you remember, why the place matters and what has remained with you. Photographs may become part of that conversation, but they are not simply references to reproduce. I am interested in understanding the relationship between the person and the place before deciding how it might become a painting.
From this, I create an original commissioned watercolour painting shaped by your story and by the same questions of place, memory and change that run through my wider practice.
The result is not intended to document a building or recreate a photograph. It is an original artwork about a place as it continues to exist in someone’s life.
If there is a place you have been carrying with you, tell me about it.
03. RESEARCH PROJECTS
Places hold more than their visible history.
A building can be documented. An archive can preserve what happened there. A map can show how a landscape has changed. Yet there is always something that remains outside the record. The way people remember a place. The stories attached to it. The distance between its documented history and the way it continues to be experienced today.
This is where my research projects begin.
Working with museums, archives, heritage organisations, hotels and other places with their own history, I develop artist led projects that explore the relationship between place, memory and contemporary experience. The form grows from the place itself and from the questions that emerge through research.
A project might develop into a new series of original watercolour paintings, archival research interpreted through contemporary artwork, a site specific project, an artist residency, conversations with local communities, public walks, drawing sessions or a temporary exhibition created within the place being explored.
These elements do not need to exist separately. A residency might begin in an archive, continue through conversations and repeated walks, and eventually become a body of original artwork accompanied by a public programme. Another project may remain deliberately small, concentrating on a single building, story or overlooked fragment of local history.
I am interested in working with organisations that are willing to look at a familiar place again and ask what may still be waiting there to be noticed.
If your place holds a story that deserves another way of being seen, I would be interested to hear about it.
04. WALKING BETWEEN
Some places reveal themselves only when we stop knowing exactly where we are going.
Some places reveal themselves only when we stop knowing exactly where we are going.
Walking Between grew from a simple idea. What happens when a familiar place is approached not as a destination, but as something to find?
A postcard becomes the beginning of the route. On one side is an image connected to a particular place. On the other, just enough information to begin looking. There is no prescribed way to reach it and no need to arrive quickly. The search itself is part of the work.
Without a familiar route to follow, attention begins to shift. Streets that usually serve only as a way from one place to another become worth looking at. Details appear. Directions are questioned. A building, reflection, fragment of architecture or turn in the road may suddenly become significant simply because we have begun to notice where we are.
Some Walking Between projects may remain as individual postcards. Others can grow into a series of routes, maps and original watercolour paintings connected to a particular town, landscape or heritage site. They can also become part of a wider public art project, artist residency or programme developed together with a local organisation.
The destination matters.
But so does everything we notice while trying to find it.
05. DRAWING THRESHOLDS
Conversations. Drawing. Observation. Shared attention.
Demo for Maidstone Art Society
- By : Aliya Bodnar
- Date : 8th October 2027
- Ticket : TBC closer to the event date
A live watercolour demonstration exploring water, reflections and the distinctive behaviour of contemporary granulating pigments.
Aliya Bodnar will demonstrate how she approaches reflected light, movement and changing surfaces in watercolour, while showing how granulating pigments can be used to create depth, texture and atmospheric variation. The demonstration will follow the development of a painting from the first decisions through layering, pigment behaviour and the balance between controlled structure and the natural movement of water.
Alongside the painting process, Aliya will share practical observations from her own practice, giving artists at different levels ideas and techniques they can take into their own work.
For Maidstone Art Society
06. SUPPORT NEW RESEARCH
Some ideas need time before they become paintings.
New work often begins much earlier than the finished artwork. With travelling to a place, walking it repeatedly, returning to an archive, making studies, following a story or simply having enough time to understand what I am looking for.
Supporting new research can help make that time possible. It might contribute to a new series of original watercolours, an artist residency, a publication, a Walking Between project or research into a place that has not yet found its way into the work.
If something I am beginning feels worth helping to bring into the world, I would be glad to tell you what I am currently working towards.