Where I Choose Myself (2026) Original Acrylic Painting by Dasha Pogodina

This artwork is shipped rolled in a protective tube (unstretched) for safe international delivery. The canvas includes an additional 2 inches (5 cm) of material on each side for professional stretching on a wooden frame. The dimensions stated in the listing refer to the final size of the artwork after stretching.
ABOUT THE ARTWORK
Where I Choose Myself belongs to the Madeleine series, where memory is approached as a space in which personal history is continually rewritten. In this painting, a quiet domestic scene unfolds as an inner decision: between closeness and separation, care and self-possession.
The figures and objects do not simply describe a moment; they stage a subtle emotional threshold. Here, choosing oneself is not framed as rejection, but as a necessary act of inner clarity — a way of reclaiming presence, voice, and authorship within the intimate landscape of memory.

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: 130 x 150 x 2cm (unframed) / 130 x 150cm (actual image size)
• Signed on the front
• Style: Impressionistic
• Subject: People and portraits