2026 Akin Career Launcher recipients Chimemelie Okafor and Veronika Bondarenko
Image of Chimemelie Okafor (left) and Veronika Bondarenko (right) OCAD University Grads and 2026 Akin Career Launcher Recipients.
We’re happy to announce OCAD University grads Chimemelie Okafor and Veronika Bondarenko as the recipients of the 2026 Akin Career Launcher!
The Akin Career Launcher is a career-support opportunity for graduating students in Drawing & Painting, Integrated Media, Indigenous Visual Studies, Cross-Disciplinary Art: Life Studies, and Sculpture & Installation at OCAD University. Offered in partnership with Akin, the award is facilitated by OCAD U’s RBC Centre for Emerging Artists & Designers. The award has been given annually since 2016.
Two graduating students receive a $2,000 credit toward a studio membership at one of Akin’s locations across the GTA for the year, along with a $450 credit for use at Akin’s Remote Gallery, located at Richmond and Portland.
Chimemelie Okafor 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 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.
To learn more and apply visit: careerlaunchers.format.com/2026-akin.
If you're interested in partnering with Akin on a Career Launcher at your institution organization, please reach out to us at info@akincollective.com.