The Luxury of Stillness, 2026

Olha Riabokon  

This artwork is shipped rolled in a protective tube (unstretched) for safe international delivery. The canvas includes an additional 2 inches (5 cm) of material on each side for professional stretching on a wooden frame. The dimensions stated in the listing refer to the final size of the artwork after stretching.

The Luxury of Stillness

There is a particular kind of feeling that comes when you no longer need to search for something outside yourself to feel the fullness of your own life. When what you hold most dear is already close, and you can simply embrace it and finally exhale.

In moments like these, something seems to bloom within — slowly, quietly, as though it had always known when its time would come. And with it comes a quiet confidence that needs neither outside approval nor confirmation.

Perhaps this is one of the most delicate forms of luxury: feeling that you belong exactly where you are, holding close what you cherish, with nowhere else you need to be and no reason to hurry. 

Series: 'Her Wild Garden'

This series brings together vivid, surreal and intimate paintings in which a recurring female figure finds herself in a slightly strange, almost fairy-tale world. Drawing on personal memories and experiences of attraction, as well as the sometimes absurd dynamics between women and men, the works transform fragments of lived experience into imagined scenes. 
Pink spaces, flowers, animals and fantastical landscapes create a sense of lightness and an almost naïve beauty. Yet beneath this sweetness, something more ambiguous gradually emerges. The women in these paintings are sensual, yet their presence is not reduced to mere objects of desire. They exist in their own space, playing, watching, hiding, seducing, getting bored, laughing and simply inhabiting their own lives. 
'I am interested in placing visual attractiveness alongside what usually remains beyond its surface'. Cute animals, decorative elements, pastel tones and floral aesthetics coexist with themes of desire, loneliness, self-perception, power and how women are perceived through their sexuality. This tension between outward innocence and inner ambiguity enables me to address serious issues in an indirect manner. 
Autobiographical fragments provide the basis for real events to transform into imagined situations, characters, and spaces. 'I want to give viewers room to find something of their own within the work — a memory, a desire, a private joke, a familiar situation, or simply a feeling'.