Polina Barskaya’s (b. 1984; Ukraine) paintings are obsessively interested with the private realm. Depicting mostly herself and her family at home, she invites us to take a glimpse into several of her states of mind as a whole range of emotions are bluntly shown. Sexual desire, caring, motherhood, idleness, laziness and melancholy — all the banal and especial things that constitutes our existence is there, in the domestic atmosphere, represented in a rather impressionistic fashion and reserving some secrets for the attentive spectator. Barskaya’s paintings hone in on the psychological intensity of their subjects and tell stories about the human condition.

Solo exhibitions include Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London; Monya Rowe Gallery, New York; Taymour Grahne Projects, London; Honey Ramka, Brooklyn; JCC Manhattan, New York and Kent Place Gallery, Summit.

Group exhibitions include Girls’s Club, Fort Lauderdale; DC Moore Gallery, New York; Anna Zorina Gallery, New York; Althuis Hofland Fine Arts, Amsterdam; Marianna Boesky Gallery, New York; Kean University, Union; Sweet Lorraine Gallery, Brooklyn and Pratt Institute, Miami among others.

Polina Barskaya received her BA in Fine Arts from Hunter College in 2007, and an MFA from Pratt Institute in 2010. She has recently been the recipient of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.

She currently lives and works in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York.