Painting Prickly Variety, artist Oksana Potemkina

• Artist: Oksana Potemkina
• Title: "Prickly Variety"
• Year: 2026
• Size: 45 × 60 cm
• Materials: oil on canvas with textured ground; framed
• Original hand-painted artwork

"Prickly Variety" is a vertical still life with houseplant cacti. Five plants in pots of different shapes and colours are gathered on a light sandy tabletop. Towering over them is a tall bluish-green columnar cactus; on the left is a massive ribbed cactus with a white flower on a long tube, in front a small cactus with orange flowers in a blue pot and a globular cactus in a terracotta pot, and on the right another globular cactus that has put out a white-and-pink bloom. The plants stand in a tight group, and their shadows fall to the left across the table, emphasising the sunlight.

The work is painted in oils over a textured ground: the blue background clearly shows a relief surface with winding veins and grain, which gives the painting a tactile quality and changes its look under different lighting. The cacti are outlined in dark contours, their ribs picked out with light and dark stripes, and the spines added with small white strokes. The flowers are painted in light, elongated strokes that contrast with the dense bodies of the plants. The artist's monogram is in the lower right corner.

The colour scheme is bright and contrasting: a saturated ultramarine background, juicy green and turquoise cacti, terracotta and brown pots and a pale sandy-yellow tabletop. White, soft pink and orange flowers act as festive accents. The painting is full of sun and the feel of a southern noon, and its mood is cheerful, with a touch of humour already present in the title.

Oksana Potemkina is a contemporary Ukrainian artist with an academic education from the Art and Graphics Faculty of Odesa Pedagogical University and ten years of experience in animation and art photography. For the last ten years she has concentrated on easel oil painting; in her still lifes she explores the materiality and texture of objects, turning them into a field for colour experiments.

The canvas measures 45 × 60 cm, or 55 × 70 cm in its frame; the work is set in a light silver frame and is ready to hang. The bright blue palette will liven up a kitchen, study, office or a light contemporary living room. The painting will make a cheerful gift for a colleague, a friend or a lover of houseplants.