Abandonment

Daria Morozova, a young artist who graduated from the painting department of the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2023, embraces a sensitive and deeply personal painting style, brimming with raw emotions. Her work shares similarities with Silva Eher’s, yet Morozova’s approach is more forceful and direct. While Eher’s art is more restrained, Morozova’s figures are unapologetically expressive, with her bold brushstrokes and compositions. She does not engage with masks or hidden meanings, but instead creates candid and unembellished (self-)portraits that reveal the emotions at their core.

Morozova’s paintings offer a profound reflection of her deeply personal inner world, establishing an immediate and direct connection with the viewer. At the heart of her work are questions of identity, themes she has explored in previous pieces as well. In one of her video works, which served as my first introduction to Morozova’s art, the artist revealed a sense of fragmentation tied to her Russian heritage, despite being born and raised in Estonia. In the video’s conclusion, she throws her Adidas tracksuit and Russian-patterned scarf into the fire, symbolising this complex relationship. The thoughts of the figures in her two paintings, rendered in cool, bluish tones, remain a mystery for the viewer.