Reaching for beauty, 2025
Painting : acrylic · 100 x 70 x 0.1 cm 39.4 x 27.6 x 0 inch
€1,400
1 400 €
Delivered in time for Christmas
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Shipped from: France
Delivery to: Germany , € 96
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About the artwork
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Credentials
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Description
“Reaching for Beauty" is a contemporary figurative painting created by French artist Natalya Mougenot as part of her ongoing Women series, dedicated to inner life, self-connection, and the quiet rituals through which women nurture their emotional balance.
The composition presents a single female figure shown from behind, her face intentionally left without features. This absence of facial identity removes any specific narrative and allows the figure to remain universal. She is not portrayed as a particular woman, but as a symbolic presence — an embodiment of a moment turned inward. As Mougenot reflects:
“When I remove the face, I leave space for feeling rather than identity."
The woman reaches gently toward a simple bouquet of pink flowers placed in a turquoise vase. This modest gesture becomes the heart of the painting. It is not an act of decoration, but one of care and attention — a quiet decision to pause and engage with beauty for its own sake. Arranging flowers here symbolizes taking time for oneself, honoring the present moment, and allowing sensitivity to guide action.
“Beauty is often found in the smallest gestures, when we finally slow down," the artist notes.
The domestic setting is intentionally understated. A bowl of fruit rests above, and the soft background dissolves into warm, luminous tones, avoiding any precise definition of place. This abstraction reinforces the idea that the scene exists outside of time — it could be any interior, any day, any life. What matters is not where the woman is, but how she feels.
Color once again functions as an emotional language. Warm pinks express tenderness and self-compassion, while fresh greens and turquoise blues introduce calm and renewal. The bouquet becomes a chromatic echo of the woman herself — as if her inner state were momentarily mirrored in the flowers she arranges.
“Color is my way of translating emotion without words," says Mougenot.
“It carries what cannot be explained."
Painted intuitively and without preparatory sketches, Reaching for Beauty preserves the immediacy of a lived moment. The visible brushstrokes remain spontaneous and expressive, holding the trace of an emotional state rather than a constructed image:
“I paint in one breath. The painting keeps the memory of that breath."
From a metamodern perspective, the work balances simplicity and emotional depth, figuration and abstraction. It avoids spectacle or irony, choosing instead sincerity and presence. The act of arranging flowers becomes a form of self-care — a silent affirmation that taking time for oneself is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Mougenot firmly rejects the idea of painting as mere ornament:
“My paintings are not about decoration. They are about moments that give us strength."
Reaching for Beauty offers a gentle meditation on slowness, attention, and personal ritual. Rooted in a contemporary metamodern sensibility, the painting invites the viewer to rediscover the power of simple pleasures — those quiet acts of care through which beauty is not only observed, but consciously welcomed into everyday life.
Details:
Medium: Acrylic on heavyweight professional acid-free Italian Fabriano paper, varnished for protection.
Dimensions: 70 x 100 cm ( 27.6 × 39.4 inches).
The piece is sold unframed.
Signed on the front and on the back.
International delivery from France: the painting will be carefully packed abd shipped flat.
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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