Varya Yakovleva began Les Femmes sauvages from a loose ink sketch of a woman, noticing her pose looked wild. The series grew across drawings, paintings, and carved wood. Her figures curve, listen, and move against soaked color fields; handwritten French phrases add a vulnerable, diaristic texture. What surfaces is an intuitive process, following a mark from impulse into physical object.

Another aspect of Yakovleva's work is a deliberate balance. She carries heavier subjects like women's rights, violence, and war, yet states, "I cannot work only with heavy subjects; I need breaths of joy." That joy appears in her la vie quotidienne series, depicting ordinary street life, bars, and cafes. Yakovleva's honesty is refreshing. She avoids stylistic posturing and instead trusts what feels sincere, making h…