Beyond the face, 2025
Natalya Mougenot

Painting : acrylic

42 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm 16.5 x 11.7 x 0 inch

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About the artwork

Type

Unique artwork

Signature

Hand-signed by artist

Authenticity

Sold with certificate of Authenticity from the gallery

Invoice from the gallery


Dimensions cm inch

42 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm 16.5 x 11.7 x 0 inch Height x Width x Depth

Framing

Not framed


Tags

Abstract

Portrait

figurative

Expressionism

Semi-abstract

Faces

Sky blue

Artwork sold in perfect condition

Artwork location: France

This contemporary abstract expressionist portrait “Beyond the Face" was created by French artist Natalya Mougenot and makes part of her ongoing series dedicated to portraits where the artist explores the fragile boundary between outer identity and inner truth. For Mougenot, the human face is not simply a likeness to be captured, but a threshold — a place where emotions, memory, and silence collide.

Executed in acrylic with broad, layered strokes, “Beyond the Face" is marked by contrasts: cold tones of blue, purple, and grey are ruptured by violent flashes of orange and earthy browns. The face seems to emerge and dissolve at once, its eyes hollow, as if withdrawing from the viewer's gaze. The work resists polish or symmetry; instead, it pulses with urgency, with raw, unfinished energy.

“I never paint from a strict plan or composition," the artist explains. “I enter the canvas like entering unknown territory. What guides me is not reason, but emotion. My hand follows an inner rhythm. If I control too much, I lose the truth."

Her artistic voice resonates with the intensity of Expressionism and the bold chromatic choices of the Fauves, while also carrying the fractured lyricism of early Cubist portraiture. Yet Mougenot refuses to be confined by labels or movements. She allows influence to filter through her language without imitation, using distortion, color, and texture to create portraits that are less about representation than revelation.

“Faces can deceive," she reflects. “But colors never lie. Each stroke is a confession — a trace of a moment when I chose honesty over appearance."

In this sense, “Beyond the Face" is also a manifesto of authenticity. Mougenot's work rejects prettiness or decorative harmony in favor of something more elemental: vulnerability, intensity, and the immediacy of feeling. “For me, art must be honest," she says. “Even if it is uncomfortable. Especially then. Otherwise it is only an ornament, and I am not interested in ornaments. I want to paint the trembling of the soul."

Her ongoing portrait series, of which this painting is part, can be read as a continuous dialogue with the self and with humanity at large. Each face is incomplete, unfinished, dissolving — a reminder that identity is never fixed, always fluid, always in search of meaning.

“Every canvas begins with silence," Mougenot concludes. “And then comes the storm. I don't paint to impress; I paint to breathe. What you see is not a mask, but the breath itself."

With “Beyond the Face", Natalya Mougenot offers not just a portrait, but a passage into the universal: a glimpse of what lies beneath the fragile surface of the human face — a place where color speaks, and honesty alone remains.

Details:

Acrylic painting on a heavyweight professional acid free paper 

Sold unframed: you are welcome to frame it according to your taste 

Sealed with vanish for protection from fading 

Images of the framed painting are for you inspiration 

Signed on the front and on the back 

International delivery from France to your place 

About the Artist:

Natalya Mougenot, born in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan, in 1981, has lived in Lyon, France, since 2003. Raised in a multicultural environment during the Soviet era, her diverse background deeply influences her artistic identity. What began as a therapeutic practice has grown into a rich exploration of themes such as modern femininity, resilience, and personal empowerment. Her emotionally resonant works—blending abstraction, nature, and floral elements—have found homes in private collections across the globe.

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About the seller

ART VOYAGE GALLERY • France

Artsper seller since 2022

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Natalya Mougenot, Beyond the face
France  • 1981

Presentation

Natalya is a contemporary  french artist living in Lyon.  

She was born and grew up in Kazakhstan, the country known for its spacious steppes.  

She arrived in France 2003. Since that moment she loves her adoptive country.

She started painting in 2017 and used it as a therapeutic and emotional release during times of crisis. She incorporates this therapeutic approach in her artistic creative process till now.

In her artistic practice she refers to the terms of metamodernism,  which proposes to look at the world from the position of the inner adult.  

As an artist and as a woman  she translates the experience of her personal search for balance based on harmony between mind, soul and body. This balance, in her opinion,  is the pillar for the inner adult.  

Important components of her work are authenticity, soulfulness, sincerity, emotionality and honesty. She immerses the objects and the characters in the world where there is no falsity, rudeness, loneliness and indifference.

She works  rapidly  and is constantly sensitive  to the details.  

Her artistic process is a fine balance between a pre-meditation and spontantainty which helps her to create her expressive atmospheric artworks with a modern touch of impressionism by cultivating a naive art approach.

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