… looking at the modern world through the surreal mirror

'If you’ve ever felt the world is a strange place, you’re not alone. Sometimes it feels confusing or painful, unfamiliar — or simply too much. There are moments I get stuck, searching for a way out… or a way in.

Painting helps me slow down, shift perspective, and find where meaning begins — and where you might just find yours, too.'

Mariya Myronova

Sweet Promises

©Mariya Myronova 2025
Oil on canvas 40cm x 40cm

This painting explores the illusion of a perfect world, where generations have been fed sweet promises.

The dreamy pink clouds represent a fabricated reality—safe, beautiful, and comforting on the surface. But beneath lies something more sinister: manipulation, pollution, broken promises, carnivorous plants, cliffs, and an unseen drop into danger. The politician’s or businessman’s hand watering this scene symbolises how governing bodies, marketers, and institutions actively sustain these illusions—offering hope while hiding consequences. Behind the clouds may be polluted factories, failed policies, or the small print behind every “perfect” product. This work questions how much of our reality is staged—and at what cost.

Insomnia

©Mariya Myronova 2024
Oil on canvas board 30cm x 30cm

This painting explores the exhausting state of insomnia—the moment when the body longs for rest, but the mind refuses to quiet down. The head becomes a squash court, where thoughts bounce rapidly and uncontrollably, each idea ricocheting before it can be grasped. The eyes, wide open and scattered, reflect the hyper-awareness that won’t switch off. It’s a restless inner game between overthinking and fatigue, where the more you try to stop the noise, the louder it becomes. A visual metaphor for sleepless nights—trapped between the need for stillness and the chaos within.

Social Media

©Mariya Myronova 2025
Oil on canvas board 30cm x 30cm

This painting explores how we are being led and controlled by social media — like we’re on a leash.

The diver represents us — just trying to function, breathe, and stay afloat. But the oxygen comes through a “Meta” tank, meaning even the information we rely on is filtered and controlled by social platforms. Above, a spinning satellite symbolises the constant demand for our attention. The seagull stands for influencers — often paid and fake — feeding us distractions straight into the eye. What we see is not neutral.

The bubbles floating around are empty thoughts — noise. We lose focus. Real thinking is replaced with scrolling. We often choose comfort and distraction over reflection.

We think we’re in control — but we’re being guided, shaped, and fed.

Parents. Good Intentions

©Mariya Myronova 2025
Oil on canvas 30cm x 30cm

This painting reflects the heartfelt intention of parents to give each child the care, love, and guidance they need to grow and thrive. In an ideal world, every sibling would receive equal support tailored to their individuality—just like the flowers, each blooming in their own way. The open door represents the opportunities parents hope to offer, while the hands symbolise their ongoing effort to protect, uplift, and remain fair. Yet behind this balance lies a quiet challenge: navigating real-life pressures, emotions, and uncertainties while holding onto that intention. It’s a tribute to both the beauty and difficulty of raising children with equal love in an imperfect world—and to the deep wish that, like in a bouquet, all buds will open and fully bloom.

Ambitions

©Mariya Myronova 2025
Oil on canvas board 30cm x 30cm

This painting reflects how our choices are often shaped by societal expectations and pressures—sometimes wearing the face of our parents, prestigious careers, or the need to succeed. The spinning top, replacing the head, symbolises the relentless pace and pressure to conform. Some manage to stay balanced and enjoy the adrenaline of fast living, while others lose control, disconnecting from themselves in the whirlwind. It’s a visual exploration of identity, speed, and the quiet cost of keeping up with the chosen lifestyle that may not be truly
our own.

Homo (sapiens). Evolution

©Mariya Myronova 2025
Oil on canvas board 30cm x 30cm

This painting shows a human so consumed by ambition and self-importance that he blindly digs his own grave—right into his perfect green lawn. Obsessed with power and control, he loses the very essence of humanity. Meanwhile, the chimpanzee sits beside him, covering its face in shame—not for itself, but for us. The roles are reversed: the animal watches the downfall of the species that once claimed to be superior. It’s a sharp, ironic reflection on modern leadership, self-destruction, and the quiet shame of what humanity is becoming.

Peace

©Mariya Myronova 2024
Oil on canvas 40cm x 50cm

This painting reveals the true forces behind modern war conflicts: money and power. The tree, rooted in a polished base marked by the languages of global influence—English, Russian, and Chinese—grows not leaves, but bullets and banknotes. The dove, chained and powerless, stands as a puppet used to disguise brutal ambition. War is no longer about people; it’s a business.

War

©Mariya Myronova 2024
Oil on canvas 30cm x 40cm

This painting speaks of war not as history, but as lived reality—stories that continue to unfold around us. No one is born to kill. Yet men are trapped by war, forced into roles they never chose: to die, to kill, to disappear behind barbed wire and duty. Is it human nature—or human failure—that allows this cycle to repeat?

Here, fathers are pulled from their families, while women are torn between waiting and surviving, between two worlds. Children grow up far from the warmth and presence of their fathers, learning fear before they know love. The red poppies rise like the souls of the fallen, beautiful yet heavy, and the border post becomes not just a national marker, but a symbol of division—where love, family, and humanity are severed by invisible hands.

This painting is to question systems that turn people into weapons. The lines that divide countries are becoming cages—for those who are sent away, and for those left behind.

Propaganda

Russian Games Series
©Mariya Myronova 2022
Oil on canvas 40cm x 50cm

This painting explores the powerful role of propaganda in shaping modern Russian society. State-controlled media, polished and manipulative, feeds a carefully constructed reality to millions—especially older generations raised on Soviet narratives. Independent thought is criminalised, and younger people stay silent to survive. The figure of Putin, shown as an organ grinder with a ‘Rubin’ TV barrel organ, powers this machine of misinformation. Wearing a VR headset, he lives detached from reality, while citizens inside the screen, heads replaced by TV sets, march in sync—trapped in a controlled world.

Unwanted Now

Russian Games Series
©Mariya Myronova 2023
Oil on canvas 40cm x 50cm

This painting captures the painful reality of war and displacement. A burning sunflower—the national symbol of Ukraine—stands tall yet consumed by flames, under attack from a golden two-headed eagle, symbolising imperial aggression. Ukrainian civilians—mothers, children, families—are falling from the flower, scattered across the globe, torn from their roots.

For many, life abroad offers safety but is driven by survival. Refugees live suspended between past and future, stuck in an “unwanted now.” Though welcomed by European countries, the emotional weight remains—grief, fear, love, hope, and the desperate longing for home. They never dreamed of starting over like this: alone, with children, without language or certainty. Each day carries one quiet, persistent hope—to survive and to finally wake from the nightmare of war.

Musical Chair

Russian Games Series
©Mariya Myronova 2023
Oil on canvas 40cm x 50cm

This painting is built from personal and historical fragments—a generational puzzle marked by loss, injustice, and occupation. At its heart is a blood-filled pool, where a golden tsar’s throne floats precariously atop the decaying legacy of the Soviet regime. A red Soviet ring with a nuclear bomb valve drifts nearby, symbolising how today’s Russian power relies on fear, propaganda, and the threat of destruction to survive.

The cuckoo perched on the throne—tied to Russian superstition about life expectancy—echoes an ominous question: how much longer can this system last? A faceless Russian army marches blindly into the blood, representing countless lives wasted in a war driven by control, not care.

Behind them, birch stakes rise like ghostly monuments, each topped with a Russian doll head—symbols of those silenced or destroyed by the regime. Nemtsov, Magnitsky, Politkovskaya, Navalny, Ukrainian soldiers, and many others—watched by unblinking eyes that serve as quiet threats to anyone who dares to speak the truth.

Above, birds flee westward—symbolising the best minds of the country, freed from the grip of television propaganda. Their escape offers a quiet resistance—intellect, truth, and integrity rising above a crumbling empire built on blood and the illusion of superiority.

The Greatest Showman

Russian Games Series
©Mariya Myronova 2023
Oil on canvas 40cm x 50cm

In this painting, the war is staged as a performance—cruel, continuous, and carefully lit for global viewing. Dressed as a showman, the figure of Putin manipulates a bleeding, broken Ukraine like a prop on display. Beneath him, the land bleeds onto the stage, yet the performance must go on.

The IV drips attached to Ukraine symbolize minimal international aid—just enough to keep the country alive, just enough to maintain the spectacle. Spotlights shine, spectators watch, and the “greatest showman” continues his act, feeding on destruction while the world provides only what’s necessary to sustain the scene.

It’s a haunting metaphor for war as theatre—where real lives suffer behind polished political posturing and calculated global inaction.

Procrastination. Dandelions.

This painting reflects how depression often begins — not with visible pain, but with avoidance.

The figure is hiding from themselves — hiding from truth, responsibility, or an important task they’re trying not to face. Instead of taking action, they withdraw.

From the figure’s head, dandelions grow — not flowers, but weeds. They stand for distractions: mindless scrolling, unimportant tasks, and excuses. These are the habits that grow quickly when we avoid discomfort. Like weeds, they spread — fast and uncontrolled — while something deeper is left uncared for.

Procrastination is not laziness. It’s often the first signal that something deeper is happening — a way of escaping what feels overwhelming or painful. This work captures that fragile moment of avoidance, before it grows into something heavier.

Japanese Knotweed

This painting explores the quiet yet destructive growth of depression. A distressed figure buries their head, overwhelmed by negative thoughts, with a storm of tension building around. Lightning cracks through the mental landscape, while roots sprout from the figure’s head and bury deep into the darkness below. These roots resemble Japanese knotweed—an invasive, unstoppable force—symbolising how depression often begins silently, disguised as procrastination, avoidance, or indecision. But the longer it remains unaddressed, the deeper it spreads, entangling both mind and spirit.

Venus Trap

This painting reflects a deeper stage of depression — when you’re no longer resisting, but already being pulled in.

The figure is caught by vortex, disappearing in darkness below. The flower disguises the dark truth of depression. Beneath it, the reality is different. The plant is a carnivorous trap. The carnivorous parts are bad habits — behaviours that attract us when we’re vulnerable. They look harmless at first: scrolling, procrastination, emotional avoidance, overconsumption, drugs, overeating etc. Once you’re drawn in, they drain energy, motivation, and the will to act. After it gets what it needs — it closes in and devours.

I am fine. Thank you

This painting shows the quiet pain of someone struggling with depression—curled up and hidden beneath the surface, lost in fear and isolation. Above the water, calm lilies float gently, like the automatic answers we often give when someone asks, “How are you?” — “I’m fine, thank you.” But beneath that surface is a soul hiding from the world, silently overwhelmed.

The painting speaks to the emotional wounds and inner battles many people carry—often masked by a smile or the appearance of strength. It’s a reminder that people can seem okay while quietly falling apart inside.

By showing the contrast between the stillness above and the pain below, the painting urges us to look deeper, to ask with care, and to act with compassion. Many people choose to suffer in silence. A small act of kindness, even quietly offered, can matter more than we realise—and sometimes, it can save
a life.

Transformation. Butterflies

This painting shows the efforts to overcome depression. The figure is reaching toward the light—fighting through the weight of destructive thoughts and old, comforting bad habits.

With each small step upward, the light becomes closer, and the path clearer. The butterflies above represent hope, focus, and renewed strength. The vine wrapped around the ankle and the clouds below symbolise what remains of the struggle—old habits, lingering doubt, and the emotional leftovers of depression. But the painting reminds us: change is there, everything is possible. Progress is slow, but every step matters. The closer we get to the light, the stronger we become—and the more we learn how to cope, move forward, and
choose life.