The protagonists in Mariya Naydis‘ works are mainly women, the “Jolie-Laide”. Female beings of peculiar beauty, beauty that does not correspond to conventional ideas. A beauty that is also exaggerated with long, slender necks and hands or cubist facial forms.
Mariya’s women emerge from dream worlds and visions that she sees in her soul while immersed in the creative act. Her figures experience and tell stories, they are embedded in realities and real life worlds, the lines between ‘here’ and ‘there’ merge seamlessly. „In my paintings I describe dreams, the movement of the soul and the visions that visit me. I am inspired by a longing for a fairy tale, a longing for absolute beauty and for absolute love. I share my perception of special creatures and their relationship with the outside world and express it with colours and lines in a surreal style“, says Naydis.
Her works are not simply “thrown together”, although one might assume that they are paintings of the soul and therefore something spontaneous, but they are worked out down to the last detail, to the smallest corner, and accompanied by iconographic elements that reinforce the narrative. Each of her colourful paintings tells a self-contained story that leaves room for the viewer’s own interpretation. For Naydis, the creative process begins with a drawing. Her visions and inner images flow into the pencil. Based on “Écriture automatique”, automatic writing controlled only by the subconscious, the artist now begins to draw “automatically”.
Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was an important role model for many Surrealists of the past, as they applied his psychoanalytic theories to artistic creation. Naydis` work is born out of this dialogue between the conscious and the subconscious, and the surrealism she represents flows easily into magical realism.
Magical realism represents precisely this fusion of real reality – tangible, visible, rational – and magical reality, made up of dreams and visions. This fusion creates a “third reality”, a synthesis of the realities we know, which the artist presents to us in her unmistakable style, inviting us to engage with it.
The viewer is overwhelmed by Naydis’ paintings. They are unusual and emotional. They have a mystical beauty, awaken unexpected longings in us, allow us to look beyond borders into other, even existential dimensions. Paintings that make us happy, or as the artist puts it: “Painting gives me the
happiness of being able to express my dreams and visions in the wide range of emotions from anger to sadness, love, fear and longing. A painting is created, the happiness remains”.
Current exhibition (a selection)
May 21 – October 31, 2025
Rausch der Sinne – Fantasie oder Realität
Kunst im Foyer der LV 1871, München, Germany
2024
Verliebt
Galerie Baumgartl, München
2023
Jolie-Laide
Kustermann, München