The Path That Is Mine (2026) Original Acrylic Painting by Dasha Pogodina

This painting will come to you stretched on a wooden stretcher and completely ready to be placed in the interior.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
The Path That Is Mine belongs to the Madeleine series, where memory becomes a space of return — not to the past itself, but to the self that was once hidden inside it. The female figure stands among trees and flowers, holding a cat close to her body, as if carrying a quiet source of instinct, tenderness, and protection.
The work speaks about self-recognition as a gentle but firm inner movement. This path is not dramatic or heroic in an external sense; it is private, embodied, and deeply personal. Within the logic of Madeleine, the painting reflects on the moment when a woman begins to distinguish her own direction from inherited expectations, old attachments, and the stories imposed on her — choosing not escape, but return to her own life.

Madeleine series
In the Madeleine series, Daria Pogodina turns to the phenomenon of involuntary memory, known in psychology and culture as the “Proust effect.” The artist explores how ordinary objects and sensory impressions from the past are transformed into emotional anchors—inner pillars of the self.
The objects and images chosen by the author—such as a mother’s sweater, childhood food, or the voice of a television announcer—become points of access to the unconscious resources of the psyche, places of comfort and stabilization. Without falling into nostalgic idealization, Pogodina captures the subtle mechanism of interaction between the conscious and the unconscious, where the mundane becomes sacred, and seemingly banal details acquire profound meaning.
These works are not about escaping the present into the past, but about seeking inner light and strength in both personal and collective experience—a testament to the human ability to find resilience in the everyday during times of crisis.

Materials used:

Acrylic

Details:

• Acrylic painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 94 x 94 x 2cm (unframed) / 94 x 94cm (actual image size)
• Ready to hang
• Signed on the front
• Style: Impressionistic
• Subject: People and portraits