Cockroaches (2025) Original Oil Painting by Diana Ivashkevich

Cockroaches — “Healing” Series

This painting belongs to my “Healing” series and is based on one of my childhood fears.

Cockroaches were part of the environment in which I grew up. At night, something objectively small could become enormous in a child’s imagination. Darkness transformed an ordinary room into a place of uncertainty, and the fear remained long after the moment itself had passed.

In this work, the cockroaches are not simply insects. They represent the particular intensity with which children experience fear — when there is no distance between imagination and reality and when even familiar surroundings can suddenly feel unsafe.

The painting returns to that memory deliberately. By bringing something once associated with fear into the controlled space of a canvas, I am able to observe it rather than experience it again.

Within the Healing series, this work is about reclaiming power over a memory: taking something that once frightened the child and allowing the adult to finally look at it without turning away.

Materials used:

oil, canvas

Details:

• Oil painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 50 x 100 x 5cm (unframed) / 50 x 100cm (actual image size)
• Ready to hang
• Signed certificate of authenticity
• Style: Expressive and gestural
• Subject: People and portraits