Tales From The First Floor: Naked by Nastasya Kharytonova

Tales from the First Floor
About artworks and artists active in the artistic workplace

Naked is an artwork born impulsively— white gesso and charcoal on textile, cut and mounted on a canvas found by chance in the atelier. Naked emerges from Nastasya’s urgency to tackle the topics of gender, bodies, their diversity, and fluidity.

The painting depicts a body traditionally considered female, yet above all, simply a person moving toward us. Open, honest, and true to themselves, they are also vulnerable, possibly ashamed of their exposure. Their openness carries a sense of submission, a desire to please, to give themselves to the other.
The face unconsciously resembles the artist’s sister, as Nastasya instinctively paints faces from memory, while the body is a blend of all the bodies she has seen in her life. Though not a self-portrait, Naked reveals a part of the artist herself—one who is exploring how to speak about bodies and (sexual) identities, finally free from the fears and taboos of her conservative upbringing.

The work expresses a paradoxical duality: the pride and necessity of being true to oneself and expressing it, yet also a lingering vulnerability driven by the desire to please others in order to be loved and accepted.
The painting was displayed and ‘narrated’ in front of an audience in the framework of Sea is for Story Tea is for Telling, December 2024, at Kaaistudios.

Nastasya Kharytonova
Naked
2024
gesso and charcoal on repurposed textile & found frame
90 x 72 cm

Image 3 : © Marina Kalleny

✨Want to know more about the artist?
Check out their webpage on Globe Aroma website and their Instagram account @bila_muha

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