My Lovers (2026) Original Acrylic Painting by Dasha Pogodina

ABOUT THE ARTWORK
“My Lovers”
In this work, the artist explores love as a state of deep bodily and emotional involvement, where the need to defend oneself or conform to expectations dissolves. Intimacy here does not demand proof and is not based on possession; it arises as a natural extension of trust and acceptance. Love is presented not as a romantic ideal, but as a living space in which vulnerability can exist without the loss of inner wholeness.
The painting affirms the idea of multiplicity as a form of inner freedom, where connection with the Other does not erase personal boundaries but strengthens them. Within the context of the Perichoresis series, this work speaks of mutual interpenetration without dissolution — of love as an experience in which individuality is not sacrificed for unity, but revealed through it, transforming closeness into a source of stability and strength.


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