Original artwork description:

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

"ANTIFRAGILE" is a compelling mixed media piece that marries the strength and intensity of classical forms with the vibrant, rebellious spirit of pop art. The central figure, rendered with sculptural solidity, emerges from the darkness, gazing at the viewer with an expression that is both haunting and inscrutable. Bold neon scribbles dance across the surface, the words "ANTIFRAGILE" repeating in a mantra of resilience and defiance.

The palette is a clash of tradition and modernity—earthy tones of the figure set against the neon pinks and greens of the graffiti, symbolizing a fusion of the enduring and the ephemeral. The artist's brushwork varies from the meticulous detail of the figure to the freeform graffiti, creating a texture that is both tactile and visually stimulating.

This work is not just a portrait; it's a statement on the enduring power of the human spirit, its capacity to grow stronger in the face of chaos and disorder. It challenges the viewer to find beauty in resilience and to recognize the potential for transformation in the face of disruption.

Inner Garden Series. Daria explores the possibility of self-identification of a person from fragments of cultures and concepts, her works actualize the thirst for the integrity of the individual in the ever-changing cycle of ideas and meanings. The artist asks about the possibility of being an integral person in the metamodern era, characterized by oscillation between polar concepts and rethinking of fundamental ideas of the past. Her work is an inner response to the question of what integrality is and whether there is a need to strive for certain ideals.

Her work is also an external response to the totalitarian concepts that still exist in society. Concepts that are imposed from above require a false integrity, namely a certain ideology, and persecute everything that goes beyond these concepts. Born at the crossroads of Ukrainian and Russian cultures during the collapse of the Soviet Union, Daria manifests the norm of fragmentation as the norm, replacing the demands of integrity with the idea of accepting otherness as unconditional beauty. Her characters build their own world in which culture has not become a dictatorship - the world that Daria considers her home.

Here is what Daria herself says about her works

I draw hybrid creatures and symbols of an anthropomorphic world because I feel like a hybrid of cultures and identities. I desire wholeness, I love to see it in others, but I feel fragmented in myself. My paintings are my way of coming to terms with my own fragmented identity, and my way of showing that the beautiful does not always have to fit into an already existing framework.

Materials used:

Oil, Acrylic

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