- Four Elements -
of the Silk Road
2018 – 2021

The birthplace of "mental archaeology".
Portraits of modern Buryat women — oil, gold, fur, silk.
A search for ancient beliefs inside living faces.

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Northern Wind
Where do you fly, my raven? What lands does the north wind carry you to?

Oil on cotton canvas,
50 х 60 х 2 сm | 19,7 х 23,6 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
$
1615
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Twins
A talisman for the creative spirit.

Oil and silver leaf
on linen canvas,
50 х 60 х 2 cm | 19,7 x 23,6 x 0,8 inch | piece
100 x 60 x 2 cm | 39,4 х 23,6 x 0,8 inch | diptych

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
Diptych:
$
3230
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Mother Earth
The eternal renewal of life and the quiet grounding that the earth offers to anyone willing to feel it.

Oil, gold leaf and crystals
on linen canvas,
60 х 80 х 2 сm | 23,6 x 31,5 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2018 (signed & certified)
$
2205
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The Inner Flame
The wild, primordial fire that lives within each of us.

Oil on linen canvas,
50 х 60 х 2 сm | 19,7 х 23,6 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
$
1615
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Inhabited land
The ancient sense of boundary between one's own world and the other.

Oil, gold leaf and crystals
on linen canvas,
70 х 60 х 2 сm | 27,5 x 23,6 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2018 (signed & certified)
$
1800
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Edge of the Earth (the Ocean)
A myth or a memory — I cannot say.

Oil and relief
on linen canvas
80 х 110 х 2 сm | 31,5 x 43,3 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
$
4360
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ARCHIVE
Steppe Gods
Oil on linen canvas
80 х 110 х 2 сm | 31,5 x 43,3 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
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ARCHIVE
Memory
Oil on linen canvas
80 х 110 х 2 сm | 31,5 x 43,3 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
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ARCHIVE
The White Crow
Oil and gold leaf
on linen canvas,
80 х 110 х 2 сm | 31,5 x 43,3 x 0,8 inch

© Daria Harlauta 2019 (signed & certified)
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More

The Facets of Myth:

Four Elements of the Silk Road (2019)
Master Gallery, Saint Petersburg

This was the beginning. My first big project. The moment I understood how I wanted to work.
I couldn't travel to Buryatia at that time. Instead, I talked to Buryat people. I listened. I made a remote request to the National Museum's archives. And from a distance, I tried to understand something ancient — the bones of a worldview where Buddhist philosophy and shamanistic roots still live inside people's faces, their gestures, the way they hold themselves.

I painted portraits of modern Buryat women. On canvas, I mixed oil with gold, relief ornaments, even mixed paint on fur and silk clothes. Why? Because history is not flat. It's layered, rough, hybrid. You can't translate ancient stories with clean, simple paint. You need a language just as complex as the memory you're trying to hold.

This project was not mine alone. Sculpture by Venera Abdullina, graphic art by Andrey Bliok, and performance - a fashion show featuring designs by Zhamso Ochirov. We built an entire environment: paintings next to sculpture, graphics, even a fashion show. A dialogue, not a solo.
Looking back now, I see it clearly: this is where "mental archaeology" was born. The method I still use today — digging for traces of the past inside the present.

No exoticism. No decoration. Just the work of listening, layer by layer.