Daria Gitmanovich
The works often find their starting point in the immediate experience of the world around - fragments of the everyday life, social situations that I can emotionally relate to and their visual representation in the media and pop culture. Taking visual clues from different sources such as images of friends, screenshots of strangers on the instagram, pictures from fashion magazines and video stills, I then interpret them in a way that creates my own fiction.
Taken out of their original context, the characters become imaginary and dream-like. Sometimes isolated, sometimes as a group, they reflect the time of uncertainty that we live in now, longing for a human connection and yet finding peace in the solitude. However, there is neither a back story, nor a future one, but they are caught somewhere in-between, thus allowing openness that is not bound to a particular interpretation. Just like a vignette that is descriptive, but free of a narrative as such, I’m interested in constructing an image that does not tell a story as a whole, but confronts the viewer with the scale of the canvas and gives cues through the materiality of paint. In exploring the surface, literal and fictional, I am questioning how it can translate a feeling and create associations, at the same time challenging the process of painting itself.
As a young woman, I am drawn to the question of femininity and how it is understood and represented in our culture today and I find much of the visual inspiration in the contemporary fashion and the enigma that follows it. Looking closely at fashion, which can be reflective of the time, I am particularly interested in how some garments can be ‘shields and mirrors’ to quote Helene Cixous from her ‘Sonia Rykiel in Translation’ essay. Quite often the characters of my work are found wearing men’s or unisex clothes, or the clothes are almost too big, the body is hidden. I wonder, if that makes them any less feminine. Yet, there is a certain self- awareness and calmness about their poses, they are in control of the gaze of the viewer and have a sense of autonomy. It may be that what I try to paint is a space where states of vulnerability and power exist at the same time. Textures, color and materiality of their clothing allow me to investigate that further while being engaged with painting on a formal level. Much of it is about ‘figuring it out’ and trying to make sense of the world, but ultimately, the goal is to create a work that has a life of its own.
