Original artwork description:

ABOUT THE ARTWORK

This artwork titled "ANTIFRAGILE" presents an innovative fusion of classical imagery and modern expression, featuring a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. The founding father is depicted with lifelike detail, capturing the wisdom and intensity in his eyes, which seem to engage directly with the viewer.

The background and overlay of the portrait are a dynamic mix of vibrant graffiti-like text, with the word "ANTIFRAGILE" repeatedly scrawled in shades of green and pink, creating a striking contrast with the earthy tones of Franklin's visage. The modern script seems to pulsate with energy against the stoic calm of Franklin's expression, suggesting a dialogue between the enduring legacy of the past and the ever-changing perspectives of the present.

The boldness of the colors used here, juxtaposed with the traditional portrayal of a historical figure, illustrates a blend of respect for the old and the embrace of new interpretations. The brushstrokes vary from the careful, detailed work on Franklin's face to the free, unrestrained movements of the text, offering a visual representation of how history can be revisited and reimagined through contemporary art.

The series of works "Antifragility
I problematize the contemporary discourse on the fragility of the human psyche, on politeness and caution turning to hypocrisy - where is the line between these concepts?
I explore the oscillation of my own psyche between strength and rudeness, between rudeness and naivety. Antifragility is insensitivity or the stoic ability to cope with one's emotions. Strength of spirit is hidden behind the discipline of society.
I am building a dialog bridge from myself to the personalities I know. I do not want to copy their lives, I always remain myself, but I enter into a dialog with them, touching through colors the spiritual experience of older colleagues, phenomena or epochs.

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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