Rybachuk worked in tandem with her husband, the artist Volodymyr Melnychenko. All their joint monumental, architectural, graphic, sculptural, and cinematic works were signed with the abbreviation ARVM.
While still a student, she received her first commission to illustrate Alena’s Tales by Mamyn-Sybiryak, published by Molod. Later, she illustrated books such as The Striped Mustachioed Cat by Samuil Marshak, Masters Without an Axe by Vitaly Bianki, and Yasochka’s Book by Natalia Zabila.
The defense of Rybachuk and Melnychenko’s graduation projects effectively became their first solo exhibition. At that time, Ada Rybachuk presented two large-scale paintings — The Trial and Lunch Break — which have not survived. The whereabouts of her painting Young Sailor, for which she received a silver medal at the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow, also remain unknown.
Together with Melnychenko, Rybachuk took part in several long expeditions to the North. During one of them, the artists held creative workshops for children at a boarding school on Kolguev Island, creating together The Great Painting of Our Island. With their monumental Northern Cycle, Rybachuk and Melnychenko conveyed the resilience of the Nenets people, living on the brink of cultural extinction. During the 1959 expedition to the settlement of Kara, Ada Rybachuk created The Lovers. Upon returning to Kyiv, she left the painting for safekeeping at the studios of the National Union of Artists of Ukraine. In September 2020, the painting disappeared, having been cut from its stretcher. The case of its disappearance, and its misattribution to Viktor Zaretsky are still unresolved.
The Melnychenko–Rybachuk duo created the monumental and decorative design of the Kyiv Bus Station, which won the First All-Union Prize of Young Architects for interiors. They also worked on the interiors of the Republican Palace of Pioneers, participated in the competition for The Monument to the Victims of Fascism in Babyn Yar, and illustrated Rybachuk’s books The Smells of the Earth and Kolguev Island. For thirteen years, they worked on the architectural and sculptural design of the memorial and ritual complex Park of Memory.
Traveling through the villages of Volyn, Podillia and Bukovyna, and studying folk customs and rituals, they created a series of prints: Indian Summer, Grandmother’s Death, and Easter near St. Dmytrii’s.
Ada Rybachuk also wrote the screenplay for the film Cry of the Bird, directed by Izrail Goldshtein.
The art of Melnychenko–Rybachuk radiates love for humanity, compassion for the dispossessed, civic courage, and a devotion to the principles of humanism that had to be defended under the conditions of the underground art scene.