"*not a vessel" - Darya Golubina

"*not a vessel" | Oil on canvas | 36x40 | 2022

This piece was created in 2022 and shown during Darya's solo show, "Surrender," at Super Secret Projects in 2023.

Exhibition Statement

“Surrender” by Darya Golubina seeks to depict the complexities and nuanced emotions that come with mental health struggles. Her use of the female form serves to explore how our societal structures contribute to the mental health struggles faced by women specifically, as well as the challenges of asserting our autonomy within these structures.

By opening up a dialogue, she hopes to inspire empathy and provide a ground for a unified understanding, to support the viewer as they too look inward and reflect on their own journey towards self-acceptance and inner peace. These paintings show the viewer that by embracing and truly loving our limitations and fears, we can find strength in vulnerability and learn to live with compassion for others. By surrendering to the flow of life, to the present, we can find fulfillment.

About Darya Golubina

Darya was born in Kiev, Ukraine and immigrated to the United States when she was 8 years old. She graduated from SVA in 2010 and after dedicating 8 years of her life to growing her professional photography career, she moved to Beacon with the goal of refocusing on her painting. Since the move she has not only found a renewed dedication to art but also a beautiful, supportive artist community. Darya is the director of Beacon Open Studios and when she isn’t photographing full size humans at the studio she still manages in NYC, she runs Tiniest Gallery Beacon, a miniature gallery and public art project she started with her friends during the pandemic to combat isolation and uncertainty.

Her painting work is heavily influenced by her childhood, a time during which she suddenly found herself unable to communicate, a spectator in a foreign country. Darya lives in Beacon with her dog Hugo.