OCAD University’s RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers is excited to announce Chimemelie Okafor and Veronika Bondarenko as the recipients of the 2026 Akin Career Launcher Call For Artists!
Chimemelie Okafor bio:
Chimemelie Okafor (b. 2003) is a Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Toronto. She is currently studying Drawing and Painting at OCAD University. Working primarily with oil paint, she also explores drawing and collage. Her practice is rooted in storytelling, using colour, patterns, and surreal imagery to explore the complexity of the human experience through her own lens.
Veronika Bondarenko bio:
Veronika Bondarenko is a Toronto-based painter completing a BFA in Drawing and Painting at OCAD University (2026). Her practice explores colour, pattern, and organic structure through process-driven painting and drawing. Working through repetition, layering, and erasure, she develops dense abstract surfaces that reference natural growth systems, insects, seeds, and mythic imagery.
Her paintings unfold slowly through accumulation and revision, allowing forms to emerge rather than be predetermined. Through this sustained process, Bondarenko approaches painting as a temporal medium in which perception, atmosphere, and symbolic associations develop through engagement with material.
Alongside her studio practice, she teaches community art classes and is active in artist-run exhibitions and collaborative projects in Toronto.