Daria Chernyshova

(b. 1988) is a visual artist based in Berlin. The artist gives intuition a leading role in her practice. The starting point of her artworks is an ephemeral vision seen by her inner eye. She develops the author's method of documenting her visual insights, supplementing them with records of emotions translated into a graphic language. The drawing process becomes a tool she uses to observe the faculty by which the mind memorizes, stores and then reproduces information in a reimagined form. Her compositions combine abstraction with geometric shapes and often include figurative elements referring to her personal recollections. These sheets resemble tables, schedules, questionnaires, or notebook pages that she fills out during self-reflection sessions to track changes in her mental content. Besides the interest in the functioning of the psyche, her attention is directed to the opposition of personal and public, individual and social. Chernyshova chose drawing on paper as her primary medium because it allowed her to most accurately and quickly capture her impressions using the simplest materials. Seeking to expand the medium's possibilities, she includes threads as a graphical element and also works with collage and multi-layered surfaces. Through regular intuitive practice, she gradually recognizes and overcomes the prohibitions imposed by a pedantic internal critic and questions the rules that come from external sources. In her diary, Chernyshova mentions that period as follows: "After all, I always knew that I was interested in inspiration as such; to observe this most curious state of mind - that amazes me with its unpredictability: the compositions are successfully synthesized without my participation in this, without my close control - they come from the abyss of the subconscious, attract me and excite me. In moments of insight, I see flickering but complete images, the nature of which I cannot fully unravel."