the turquoise ether magazine’s mission is to publish independent critical reviews of promising artists from over The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

Turquoise #14 — Daria Mirovova (Russia)

Daria Mirovova’s fascinating talent and the way she manages to turn her vision and ideas into illustration are just mesmerizing. Born in Moscow, Russia, in 2015 Daria completed her studies in the field of interior design and started working with private clients on city apartments, and country houses. While she was working as an interior designer, she realized that she got a lot of satisfaction from interacting with patterns, textures, and decorative elements.

Unfortunately, having such a great volume of orders and projects, Daria didn’t have enough time to work on and develop her artistic skills, so after almost three years of practice, she decided to finish her career as a designer and become a full-time artist.

After she finished her career as a designer, Daria took a lot of courses and masterclasses, improving her skills, practicing watercolour painting, and learning how to use different media. By becoming a member of the local art community, she taught watercolour group classes and individual lessons, expanding her networking and developing her communication skills.

In 2017, together with her partner, artist Tatiana Golovko, Daria founded an educational project “WatercolorLab”, aimed at popularizing watercolour technique, research of various technologies of production of modern art materials, introducing students to watercolor painting techniques, types of paper, characteristics of pigments, etc. This project lasted almost three successful years.

For two years in a row, the project received “The Expert of the Year” award in the competition of a major distributor of art supplies in Russia, and as the popularity of the project was growing, many companies were offering their collaboration. Over the years, the project has implemented several educational programmes with more than 700 students. Moreover, together with a popular Russian brand of notebooks ‘Maxgoodz’, Daria and Tatiana developed a technical notebook for the students of watercolor technique. Its design and content were based on the materials and knowledge gained during the work on the project. At the height of the project, the British art brand “Winsor & Newton” invited them to speak at the launch of a new watercolour line in Russia, and then the company sponsored Daria’s trip to its London headquarters and to the factory in France.

Daria’s traveling to the UK and European countries has absolutely changed the direction of her artistic practice. At that time, she was looking for a better way to express herself in her artistic practice, for the experience, both cultural and visual, and finally, she came to botanical and decorative illustration.

Daria draws her inspiration from studying old botanical reference books and illustrated encyclopedias, visiting art museums and botanical gardens, and studying the heritage of other artists of the past. She is more than excited by the idea of art as a process of self-education, as she goes deep into the understanding of aesthetics and ideals of different historical époques — from Renaissance to Baroque and Art Nouveau.

After Daria became a member of English and Russian associations of botanical artists, Daria’s artworks have been featured in more than 10 exhibitions over the years. Art lovers and professionals from Russia, the US, and Europe purchased her botanical illustrations and prints for their private collections.

Almost every project Daria has undertaken has helped her develop her network of contacts, which has led to her active participation in many art communities of illustrators.

The pace that Daria maintains in her exhibition activities suggests a rapid development of her skills and the high achievements in botanical illustration and art expected in the near future. Nonetheless, Daria is focused not only on the botanical art, but also on investigating different historical styles.

She has been creating custom and licensing patterns since 2019, and these complex unique projects are in great demand, as she plays with a mix of elements of different styles, experiments with the plasticity of lines, and finds elegant decisions of color tones.

In an attempt to develop her artistic skills and take more time to create, Daria has chosen illustration as a means of self-expression and exploring different facets of beauty. She took a fundamental 6-month course in ornaments and patterns (led by Vyacheslav Rode), which allowed her to develop her own unique style of pattern-making and to mix traditional and digital techniques in her projects.

For more than a year she has been working for the Russian studio PSPatterns, creating the wallpaper designs for them. Working for this company Daria collaborated with manufacturers of tableware, table textiles, and gift wrapping.

As Daria continues to study different techniques and materials, she plans to try herself in linocut and graphics, as she finds great inspiration in retro scientific illustration and ornaments. She sees illustration as a narration and a careful search for elegance, beauty and perfection.

Having more than 7 years of painting experience, today Daria represents her artworks in many exhibitions. Some of the most recent are the “Purely Botanical” online exhibition from ABBA United Kingdom (October 2020), “The art of contemplation” exhibition from RuBotanicals Russia (April 2021), the 24th annual exhibition from the ASBA United States (September 2021), and “Plantae 2022” from the SBA United Kingdom (June 2022).

https://dariamirovova.com/

https://www.instagram.com/daria_mirovova/

Author:

Alisa Lisovskaia

Art consultant, art critic

Curator at BHSD, Moscow