Lilies in Bloom, 2025
Natalya Mougenot

“Lilies in Bloom" is a large contemporary painting (70 x 100 cm / 27.5 x 39.5 in) by French artist Natalya Mougenot, inspired by Claude Monet's timeless water lilies and Joan Mitchell's expressive abstraction. This work reinterprets the serenity of nature through Mougenot's unique and recognizable painterly language — one that merges emotional truth, color vibration, and spontaneous movement.

Rendered in radiant shades of violet, pink, turquoise, and soft gold, the painting captures both the stillness and energy of a pond in bloom. The composition oscillates between abstraction and evocation, inviting viewers to sense rather than see, to feel rather than describe. Mougenot's water lilies seem to float between dream and memory — an inner landscape as much as a natural one.

A devoted admirer of Claude Monet, Mougenot often returns to the "Musée de l'Orangerie"  in Paris, where she finds endless inspiration among the master's monumental panels. “Standing before Monet's lilies gives me calmness," she explains. “It clears my thoughts — it's like being inside silence and color at the same time." These encounters profoundly influence her creative rhythm, infusing her work with contemplation and luminous harmony.

While Monet informs her poetic sensibility and Mitchell her liberated gesture, Mougenot's art stands apart for its authenticity and depth. “A painting can't lie — it always reveals the truth of its creator," she says. “The canvas and the artist's inner world are two halves of one whole." Her process is instinctive, layering and relayering colors until they begin to breathe on their own.

Created on heavyweight professional Italian Fabriano paper, “Lilies in Bloom" embodies the artist's love for paper as a living surface. “Paper absorbs the paint quickly and keeps the colors alive," Natalya notes. “It lets me work freely — to paint, erase, and paint again — without losing the immediacy of emotion." This tactile intimacy with her medium enhances the authenticity of her gesture and the transparency of her feeling.

For Mougenot, art is never decorative — it is existential. “When the artist is false, the painting becomes silent," she says. “Some paintings decorate walls; others reveal souls." Her philosophy aligns with metamodernism, an artistic sensibility oscillating between emotion and reflection, sincerity and awareness. In this space, she builds what she calls “a quiet revolution against hypocrisy," asserting that “honesty in art is a quiet revolution against hypocrisy" and that “true art begins where pretending ends."

“Lilies in Bloom" thus becomes a mirror of truth and beauty — a poetic meditation on nature, emotion, and authenticity. As Mougenot reflects, “The most powerful art is born from coherence — between what we feel and what we show. Art becomes alive only when the artist dares to be real."

About the piece:

- Medium: Acrylic on heavyweight professional acid-free paper, varnished for protection

- Dimensions: 70 x 100 cm ( 27.6 × 39.4 inches)

- The piece is sold unframed, but as it is a standard size, you should have no difficulty finding a suitable frame to complement it

- Signed on the front and back

- Certificate of Authenticity included

- International delivery from France: shipped flat

About the Artist: 

Originally from Pavlodar, Kazakhstan, and now based in Lyon, France, Natalya Mougenot has spent over two decades refining her artistic voice. Her multicultural background and personal experience inform her bold, expressive works, which have found homes in private collections around the world.

Natalya's distinctive visual language blends Abstract Expressionism, Impressionism, Art Naïf, and Art Brut—resulting in paintings that are raw, instinctive, and emotionally resonant. Across her work, three values guide her: authenticity, sincerity, and honesty.

“Authenticity is everything," she says. “People can always feel when something is real—or when it's not. I want my work to be honest, to come from a place that's true."