Painting Golden Venus, artist Yulia Panina

• Artist: Yulia Panina
• Title: "Golden Venus"
• Year: 2026
• Size: 70 × 80 cm
• Materials: stretched canvas, acrylic, gold leaf
• Original hand-painted artwork

"Golden Venus" is a vertical half-length image of a woman that clearly refers to Botticelli's Venus. The figure is turned almost frontally and fills most of the canvas. Long red hair streams in the wind: on the right it flows beyond the edge of the picture in broad wavy locks, on the left it curls into a large spiral at the shoulder. Several strands are tied with light silvery ribbons. The face, neck and shoulders are not painted in detail but covered with gold, and only a thin line marks the oval of the chin. In the lower part a hand resting on the chest is sketched in a fine outline, a detail that completes the composition and hints at the source of the image.

The work is executed in acrylic with gold leaf in a contemporary personal manner. The artist combines two opposite approaches: the hair is painted in detail with many thin strokes of different shades conveying the volume and movement of every strand, while the figure remains a flat golden silhouette without facial features. The metallic surface of the leaf, with its slight creases and shimmer, lives a life of its own and changes with the lighting. The artist's signature is in the lower right corner.

The colour scheme is built on three elements: a soft blue background, the warm copper-red range of the hair and radiant gold. The blue background is painted with light, slightly blurred transitions and recalls a morning sky over the sea. Against it, the red strands with ochre and amber highlights look especially alive, while the gold gives the image solemnity and a sense of light coming from within. The silvery ribbons add a cool note and balance the warm tones. The mood of the painting is tender, festive and a little mysterious at the same time.

Yulia Panina is a Ukrainian artist based in Kyiv. She trained as an economist and an interior designer and has been working in art for about six years. She uses acrylic paints, texture paste and gold leaf and usually paints image-paintings without facial features; this approach gave rise to her series "Golden Maidens".

With a size of 70 × 80 cm and a vertical format, the painting will suit a living room, bedroom, dressing room or hallway, as well as a beauty salon or design studio. The gold and blue harmonise with light walls, beige, milky and grey shades, brass fittings and furniture in contemporary classic or Art Deco style. The absence of facial features leaves room for imagination: every viewer sees something of their own in the heroine. The work will make a memorable gift for a woman for a birthday, anniversary or housewarming.