Interview with artist Daria Lyulyukova

In this interview, we reflected on why tactility could become a new language of communication, about a future being created in the artist’s studio, and about the most brilliant scenarios that life itself writes.

— Relative to yesterday — yes, it has undoubtedly arrived.

Actually, that’s a brilliant question. The future arrives selectively: for those who dreamed of always being able to communicate with anyone remotely and without problems, the future has been here for a long time. In our reality, what was once the future is now simply a given, because reality exists here and now.

If we speak philosophically, then for me, the future is always ‘tomorrow.’ And today is just a moment, a thin line between the past and what will be tomorrow.

— Definitely intrigues me. I’m insanely curious about what tomorrow holds, although right now I’m learning the great art of living today. Recently, I went on a big month-long trip to the south, and circumstances plunged me into conditions where you have to trust life itself. In the end, everything turned out surprisingly comfortable, and this experience became the best lesson for me: when you let go of control and live in the present, the future adjusts itself to you.

The subjects of these portraits became family, friends, and musicians. Perhaps you know the band “Sedmaya Rasa”? I had a dream to draw from life those I listen to and love. I remember being 15 and replaying this band’s albums, and years later, at one of their acoustic concerts, I passed Sasha, the band’s leader, a note with the question: “Alexander, would you pose for me?”. And he agreed! He sat in the studio for six hours, and that’s a real feat.

— At that moment, I was telling myself: “Dasha, just don’t ruin everything!”. Now, when we find ourselves in the same city, he comes to my exhibitions, and I go to his concerts. Once he even brought a member of the band “Epidemiya” to the vernissage. The people at the exhibition that day couldn’t believe their eyes, because for our provincial town, such connections are something incredible.

Also, in this series of works, there are portraits of my very different grandmothers.

— I had always mostly drawn people of Caucasian descent, so even my Asians ended up looking like Europeans, and then I wanted to learn to convey human diversity. So a project was born consisting of 17 portraits of people of different nationalities. I looked for faces on National Geographic, and behind each portrait was a real story. My task was to draw the portrait and engage the viewer, to tell that person’s story. For example, the story of an albino girl from Papua New Guinea. For me, it was also a matter of anatomical interest and a deep immersion into a tragic context. I was shocked to learn that in Papua, albinos are treated as ritual animals, they are often killed for talismans, and they rarely live to be 18 years old. I painted a portrait of such a girl in a calico dress, with a ripe mango in her hands, and with a sense of the fragility and injustice of that life. This is a whole story that I, as an artist, cannot help but immerse myself in.

My technique is special: I draw and glue, then draw and glue again. I use everything: corrugated cardboard, twine… But the main material is old, unwanted books and magazines. I roll pages into tubes and assemble the paintings from them. Sometimes, while rolling, I read what’s written there. I remember coming across some moldy educational magazines. I think: well, they have to go somewhere, better they go into art than just go to waste.

— The most difficult material for me is oil paint. It’s great on its own, of course, but personally, I have a complex, almost toxic relationship with it: it smells, takes a long time to dry, requires caustic thinners, it’s a harsh material. With acrylic, for example, everything is simpler. That’s why I started experimenting with other materials.

— Yes, I create canvases with different textures, with perforations, with details: I stitch some things, I glue others. Now this has grown into the foundation of my current creative work.

The greatest pleasure for me is to give the viewer the opportunity to break the main museum rule: ‘do not touch with your hands.’ How can you not touch when you want to! My works can and should be stroked; that’s what all these little stitches and three-dimensional elements are for.

Later, I transferred this tactile approach to portraits. For example, I had a ‘tea-and-coffee’ project about domestic intimacy, where I depicted people with a cup of tea, and in the background were their personal belongings – special mugs, teapots. I added my own tactile detail to each portrait: little stars that glint differently, or a texture related to the person’s habits.

And there was also an interactive element in this series: I drew cakes and asked the viewers to guess their names. It was so wonderful! I immersed myself in the history of desserts then: I learned about the Viennese Sachertorte, which two confectioneries still argue over, and the German ‘Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.’ I tried almost all these cakes for inspiration. Even simple candies in the paintings look so real you want to eat them. It’s a whole world that you want not only to see but also to feel with your fingers, and sometimes, even with your tongue.

— Everyone talks about a future with robot waiters and virtual worlds, but I think about something else: about the sound of the crowd’s hum, the monotonous buzzing of a large number of people. What will happen if it disappears? If everyone is locked in their own digital box?

But the most important thing is tactility—the finest work of nerve endings on the fingertips. If you play a musical instrument, you can change the angle of your finger, and the sound will immediately change. Artificial intelligence is incapable of such subtlety because it’s a different level of being.

In acupuncture, to find the right point, you must first feel it on your own body, not blindly follow a diagram. This is knowledge that cannot be transmitted by an algorithm because it requires human presence, the human capacity to feel.

The true art of the future, and my personal future, is not complexity for the sake of complexity, but depth of feeling. The ability to draw a connection between the flap of a butterfly’s wing and a hurricane on the other side of the world.

Art is precisely the search for such connections, and the main tool in this search is not a computer, but the human hand that holds a pen or a brush. As long as it exists, the future exists too.

— For me, art is always a dialogue. A dialogue with the model, with the material, with the story behind the portrait. And the main task is to make this dialogue honest.

But to achieve it, three things are needed: life experience, impeccable command of the craft, and, perhaps, that very sensual ecstasy. When you are at the peak of emotions, the work is born differently, because it acquires a voice. I experienced this myself when my song “Despair” was born. It was a difficult period related to a commission; I sat and wept from a sense of powerlessness. And out of that despair came a song — such a powerful, sincere hit that I’m still surprised by it.

And the most important thing: that painful experience ceased to be pain. It turned simply into experience, thanks to being transmuted into art. The song became my salvation. So yes, the best art truly doesn’t require explanations; it speaks to you directly because it is born from genuine feeling.

— Yes. Especially since I do like to be a bit of a hooligan, but very much in secret.

— Is it possible to live a day without swearing? Of course, it’s possible. Why not? The question isn’t about the fact of using curse words, but about their overuse. And here, it seems to me, the habit of using filler words like “like” or “so” is much more harmful and irritating. And that image of a ‘boorish’ person who inserts a swear word every other word is probably already outdated.

Today, swearing is most often the language of expression: an outburst of emotions when you need to speak your mind, or a sharp joke in company. Chastushki at a birthday party, for example – why not? I’m not for eradicating it; I’m for dosage and even elegance. For instance, I really like how my in-laws sometimes toss around vulgarities – swearing in their mouths sounds special.

We are used to thinking of swearing solely as a destructive force, but we forget that in olden times it was a word of defense, and even a word of healing. Take even the scientific fact: when a person hurts themselves and immediately swears, they feel better. If a person holds back, it’s unclear where that unexpressed pain will go later. There are many subtle nuances here.

Personally, I don’t have a rule of “not swearing at all,” but I would reduce the amount of swearing in my life. Sometimes I can burst into the house and launch into a tirade; from the outside it looks ugly, but in the moment of breakdown it helps, as if you’re letting off steam.

After all, it’s not about the words, but the intonation and intention. You can be a model of an intelligent person and skillfully use swearing situationally. I know a lot of brilliant minds – doctors, cultural workers – for whom swearing is part of their working vocabulary. It’s a conversational language that allows you to convey a thought and an emotion briefly and succinctly. And if a person wants to destroy, they will do it with polite words too.

— I’ve settled this question for myself once and for all: I have no bad habits in my creative work. I’ve accepted as an axiom: everything I did at any given moment was the best I was capable of at that time. I never return to finished works that are already in the studio archive to correct them. Recently, I was getting out some children’s portraits for an exhibition, unwrapped them, and thought: “Damn, Dasha, how did you even paint this? It’s so cool!”.

Yes, I’ve grown since then, my understanding of anatomy and materials has become incomparably higher. Of course, I could have done it differently, but I’ve made an agreement with myself: not to scold myself for the past, but to value it as a stepping stone. In my creative work, everything is good. I’m great.

My own style is emerging; I experiment, try things, discard things. Someone once told me: “Your works are not an exhibition, but a phenomenon,” and I thought, why should I squeeze myself into the framework of a style if I can be a phenomenon myself?

I often hear feedback like: “I’ve never been to an exhibition like yours.” And I want to continue this trend—to create displays of paintings, turning them into unique events. I don’t yet know what I’ll be allowed to do in a museum… But I know for sure that I will go there in a tailcoat, because any phenomenon should be presented in a unique way.

— I do not expect any specific reaction. At all. For me, any reaction to my work is simply a fact, simply a person’s honest feeling. But, as it turns out, that is precisely the main sign of art. The very presence of a reaction of any kind already makes an object a work of art, regardless of whether the response is positive or negative.

Sometimes, sharp rejection or even anger speaks much more about the impact of a work than polite approval. If a piece has touched a nerve, provoked an internal response, debate, questions, it means it has succeeded. Silence and indifference, on the contrary, can become the opposite of art, but any emotion only confirms that a dialogue between the artist and the viewer has begun.

— Yes.

— I’ve come to a surprising conclusion: there are no meaningless compliments. Any praise is pleasant, but there is a difference in, let’s say, the ‘depth of field.’

The most valuable thing for me is when at an exhibition, every viewer finds ‘their’ painting. In each of my projects, there will be that one work that resonates with someone specific. One work will have 150 admirers, another will have just one, but a devoted one. That’s the magic: each painting gives something of its own.

I don’t perceive criticism negatively either. If it’s constructive feedback on technique, for example, on anatomy where I might have made a mistake, I will only be grateful, because it gives me a reason to grow. And if it’s a matter of taste… I feel the material the way I feel it. It’s my choice. You need to remain honest with yourself, and the rest will follow.

—In the end, everything depends on a person’s inner substance. Take, for example, the answer to the eternal question: what is good and what is evil—for me, it always lies in the context. Recently I read a wonderful thought: without light there is no shadow, and shadow is born only thanks to the light. It turns out that the light gives rise to the dark.

I often encounter this in my own experience. It seems like I’m just exhibiting projects, doing my thing, but there are always people who try to sow doubts in my confidence. But it’s just art! Just a way to show what’s inside. It’s just that I can allow myself to do it, that’s all.

I’m often asked: ‘Are you an artist (male form) or an artist (female form)?’ and I don’t care. I sign paintings as ‘Artist Darya Lyulyukova,’ but I don’t mind how people refer to me, because I like any derivative of my name. As a child, I didn’t like the name Darya, but now I adore it. I like it when people choose how to address me as they see fit: I can be Darya, Dasha, Dashka, Daryushka, Dashulya, Dashukha, it doesn’t matter. My dad calls me Donya, my mom calls me Dunyashka.

And in that, perhaps, lies that very light—the freedom to be different and to accept oneself under any name and in any manifestation. And the shadow simply confirms that the light exists.

— It would probably be an aroma that reveals itself differently to everyone, the one you need at a given moment. If you felt like smelling an orange, there it is, fresh, unfolding before you.

If we consider the concept that an artist is merely a conductor of spiritual energy, then a painting, like a scent, gives each viewer their own particle of enjoyment. Maybe not immediately and not to everyone, but to those who need it, it will certainly convey something.

So, most likely, my painting is similar to a universal fragrance, capable of turning into vanilla, chocolate, or citrus freshness. It doesn’t impose a single sensation but softly opens up to those who need it here and now.

I rather imagine that robots will be led through galleries as if on tours. They will memorize data, analyze style, and this will be just another method of gathering information. And then you could ask an android to tell you about the technique and history of a painting.

But a robot could never say: “You know, the color palette of the painting ‘Sunflowers’ appeals to me less than the delicate blue of ‘Blossoming Almond Branches,’ because the latter evokes in me a feeling of fragile spring.” Such an assessment, which comes from the soul, can only be given by a person.

People should create art for people. Does anyone want to resemble an artificial intelligence? No. A person needs a human example, human emotions, human understanding. That is the essence of art.

— The answer seems obvious to me: an algorithm has no feelings. It hasn’t lived through the experience you put into your work; it cannot tell the story that burns inside.

I see how many artists use neural networks to “visualize” an idea from their head. But then, what are we to do with what’s inside if we delegate its expression to a machine? I don’t need suggestions; my task is to convey what I see and feel.

Fortunately, I’ve already developed a connection between my hand and my brain, and I can draw what I feel myself. I am interested in the process of pulling something out from within myself, not assembling it from ready-made puzzles.

Although I acknowledge that for speeding up work on sketches or for purely commercial tasks, neural networks are a powerful tool, I don’t use them. Simply because I find it more interesting to do things my own way.

— You know, I think that in the end, everything will disappear somewhere. Of course, one can achieve such fame that museums will store your paintings at a specific temperature and humidity, but everything physical will vanish, and only the digital will remain. That’s why I photograph all my works.

And if you dig deeper… I have an interesting theory that when a person dies, the internet page where their life was posted becomes a kind of monument. Perhaps in the distant future (if the internet still exists), among millions of such lost pages, my little monument will still remain.

So, into that capsule, I would put the faith that people can achieve anything they want.

As for material things… Perhaps I would leave them the silver Vietnamese bracelet I inherited from my grandmother. As for paintings… I’m a realist: for works to be preserved, we need museum workers, restorers, an entire system. So, leaving behind something physical that will last for centuries is an almost impossible task. I sometimes think seriously about this. But I come to the conclusion that ideas, the belief in possibilities, are far more durable than canvas and paints.

— Right now I’m writing a book in the post-apocalyptic genre, and in my world, civilization has rolled back to a slave-owning society. Such a scenario has only two paths: either humanity is smart enough to find a way out, or it isn’t.

History has shown us more than once that ideas can be good, but their implementation can turn into an outright failure. Take socialism, for example: to build a fair system, you need to try incredibly hard and, first and foremost, start treating people humanely, without intrusive propaganda.

When I hear that Elon Musk is sending people to Mars, I think: ‘Thank God! Let them fly away, I’ll stay here.’ I’m fine on this planet. I notice another trend: people are increasingly drawn to nature. Science is wonderful when it helps, not enslaves, but when you’re glued to your phone and life flies by in a few hours—that’s a move in the wrong direction. Whereas going on hikes, attending retreats, striving for simplicity—that seems good to me.

Most likely, I would focus on passing on knowledge. I can’t say I’m drawn to teaching, but if you’re the last one on Earth, you have to try to leave a trace. My students and I would become researchers: we’d learn to create new paints, experiment with compositions. After all, the technology is mostly already known, so why not try? The world is full of colors that someone once discovered through trial and error.

Essentially, this is the foundation of foundations—to take one color and find a million of its shades: lighten it with white, darken it with black, mix it with other colors. It’s from such simple steps that all diversity is born. So, if I were the last artist on Earth, I would teach people to rediscover color, so that the world after me wouldn’t seem gray.