Books w/ Dasha Belokrylova - Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self-Portraits

A Book Review from The Florence Academy of Art faculty featured on The FAA Collective Patreon

This week’s book recommendation is brought to you by FAA painter, graduate and principal instructor, Dasha Belokrylova.

In this video, Dasha speaks about one of her favorite reads, “Seeing Ourselves - Women's Self-Portraits”, by Frances Borzello - a book that uncovers a fascinating and sometimes neglected side of art history through the exploration of self portraits by female artists.

Not only is this book rich in images of famous and lesser-known paintings, it is filled with stories and fascinating facts behind the self-portraits and about their creators.

Dasha's reflections on the journey of female artists to develop their professional status as painters are accompanied by a wide-ranging array of examples of what “a female beauty is”, along with the artists' own stories.

More about Dasha:

Dasha Belokrylova is a Russian painter with an English education and upbringing. At the age of 16 she decided that art was her main interest in life. Following this decision, Dasha finished a two year A-level program in London at a fine arts college. After spending one year in a contemporary arts university in Wimbledon, she realised that her desire was to learn the traditional ways of painting.

In 2015 Dasha began the Drawing & Painting Program in The Florence Academy of Art. During these years in Florence, Dasha learned the method of sight-size, the anatomy of the human body, and oil painting process in full depth. After graduating the three-year program in 2018, Dasha was offered a unique opportunity to stay as an artist in residence that also provided her with teaching experience. She is now a Principal Instructor in the Intensive Drawing Program.

Dasha’s mind is fascinated by mythology and fairytales. She often finds herself challenging the normal depiction of the human body by morphing it with mythical creatures. Studying the nude every day gave her confidence to draw believable figures from her imagination. When painting portraits, she loves to give the sitter an individual meaningful, a story, and create for them a whole different world inside of the canvas.

See more of Dasha’s work at:

Website www.ashscale.it 

Instagram www.instagram.com/ashscale