Sofia & Tania Stupnikova
Hold your breath
Acrylic on canvas
60×60 cm
2023
Košice, Slovakia
Price: 720 EUR
This painting was created together with my daughter, Sofia. At the time, she loved anime much more than I did and understood its visual language far better. She drew Medusa’s face; I painted the rest.
For me, this painting became an experiment in breaking my own rules. I had always felt that a painting should fill the whole canvas, and that leaving large areas almost untouched somehow meant leaving the work unfinished. Here, for the first time, I let the background remain open. I also borrowed a visual language that was not yet mine and mixed it with my own way of painting.
I enjoyed the process enormously. And somewhere along the way, many things I had considered “not mine” became mine.
Perhaps you just have to hold your breath and dive in.