Original artwork description:

ABOUT THE ARTWORK
"Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women" from the "Perichoresis" series offers a radically different perspective on the Annunciation—as a moment where the sacred and the bodily are not in opposition, but united in a space of freedom, maturity, and mutual recognition.
At the heart of this image is not submission, but conscious presence. Here, being chosen is not a privilege granted from above, but the woman’s readiness to be in contact with herself, with life, and with the transcendent—without losing her autonomy. The divine does not arrive to dominate, but to engage in a dialogue—gentle, charged, and real.
This work affirms that holiness does not exclude sensuality, and that blessing is not dependent on the rejection of the earthly. It redefines the sacred as an inner state of wholeness, where the body, choice, boundaries, and acceptance become expressions of spiritual maturity.

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

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