Baptism in Pleasure (2026) Original Acrylic Painting by Dasha Pogodina

ABOUT THE ARTWORK
“Baptism in Pleasure”
In this work, the artist turns to the idea of baptism as a moment of inner transition, freeing it from the traditional religious narrative. Purification here does not occur through the rejection of bodily experience, but through its recognition as an integral part of human wholeness. Pleasure is understood not as the opposite of the spiritual, but as a state of deep engagement with life, where a person stops dividing themselves into what is “acceptable” and what is “forbidden.”
The painting speaks of acceptance as a form of sacred experience. It is a space in which sensuality becomes a language of trust, and intimacy becomes a possibility for renewal without the loss of self. The artist affirms that a genuine connection with the divine is possible not through the suppression of desire, but through honest presence in the body, where pleasure transforms into an act of awareness, love, and inner consent.


PERICHORESIS SERIES
“Perichoresis” (ancient Greek περιχώρησις - “interpenetration”), a theological term meaning the mutual penetration of divine parts into each other, to describe a unique union that does not imply mixing or merging, but emphasizes an indivisible unity.
Daria explores the theme of new sexuality, deliberately choosing a term from theological treatises for her series of works.
With this gesture, she protests against the dictates of religion, the church’s manipulation and pessimization of human sexual manifestations and physicality, the false meanings and concepts with which religions have burdened, and instead of building true connections and bridges for man and God, they build walls.
“Perichoresis” for her is a beautiful and complex term that describes the fusion of the divine and the material. Having grown up in the Protestant tradition within an Orthodox society, Daria notes the common separation of sexuality from divinity in all these religions, while she sees sexuality as the clearest manifestation of divinity, beauty, and sublimity.
The artist notes that Christian culture has invested the image of the female body with a narrative of pornographic tension, while at the same time presenting paradise before the Fall as a sexual paradise, the Garden of earthly pleasures. For the artist, sexual paradise is a safe environment, complete trust, acceptance, the opportunity to open up and discover the Other, the opportunity to learn to be loved and to love.
Love is an environment where merging does not dissolve in another person, but on the contrary, strengthens the individuality of each and enriches each other.
Thus, the artist reminds that the division into the sublime and the low in love is artificial, and overcoming this division can make life more beautiful. The heroes of her paintings are immersed in the enigmatic space of love, and sometimes there are ironic scenes that balance the degree of sublimity.

Materials used:

Acrylic

Details:

• Acrylic painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 150 x 170 x 2cm (unframed) / 150 x 170cm (actual image size)
• Signed on the front
• Style: Impressionistic
• Subject: People and portraits