Daria Gamulina’s Fragmented Portraits at Marquez Art Projects in Miami

This summer, Marquez Art Projects in Miami presents a captivating solo exhibition by London-based artist Daria Gamulina, on view from June 17 to July 15, 2025. Known for her meticulously detailed paintings that explore fashion as a language of self-expression, Gamulina transforms fragments of fabric, accessories, and costume into powerful narrative devices. This latest body of work continues her exploration of how people use clothing as both armor and autobiography—revealing, concealing, and performing their identities in ways that are both deeply personal and culturally constructed.

Gamulina, who was born in 1987 in Dnipro, Ukraine, brings a unique perspective to the intersection of fine art and fashion. With a BFA in Costume Design from St. Petersburg’s Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design and current postgraduate studies in Painting and Performing Arts at Central Saint Martins in London, her academic background in scenography and performance is unmistakably present on her canvases. Each painting feels like a freeze-frame from an unseen theater production, where the cast has just exited stage left, leaving only their carefully chosen garments behind as clues to the drama that just unfolded.

Daria Gamulina Finds Storytelling in the Details

What sets Gamulina’s work apart is her acute attention to detail and her ability to tell complex emotional stories through close-ups of clothing. Unlike traditional portraiture, she rarely depicts full faces or bodies. Instead, she zooms in on the folds of a silk scarf, the glint of jewelry, the intricate weave of linen, or the casual drape of a blazer. In doing so, she invites viewers into an intimate dialogue with the materials, urging them to fill in the blanks—who wore this, where were they going, and what story were they trying to tell through these stylistic choices?

Her visual language draws heavily from the aesthetic codes of vintage fashion magazines, old look books, cinema stills, and even the colorful chaos of newsstand displays. This patchwork of references allows Gamulina to blur the line between documentation and imagination. Viewers are left hovering between worlds: the seen and the suggested, the tactile and the imagined.

A Show of New Paintings in Miami

There’s a palpable tension running through her Miami exhibition. Each canvas holds both presence and absence—clothing that implies bodies, but bodies that never fully appear. In one painting, the careful detailing of a handbag’s clasp speaks volumes about its absent owner’s taste and possible socioeconomic story. In another, a cropped view of patterned trousers beside scuffed loafers suggests a scene just missed, like the aftermath of a conversation or a fleeting encounter.

This strategy of partial revelation encourages projection. Gamulina asks viewers to participate in constructing the narrative—filling in the psychological gaps with their own interpretations and emotional resonance. The anonymity of her subjects universalizes the storytelling, making each work as much about the viewer as about the imagined figure it references.

“In my paintings, I try to depict those small, seemingly unimportant, and ephemeral moments and focus on showcasing details – the same ways cinematographers do, or fashion books and catalogs, or postcards,”

—Daria Gamulina

Gamulina’s recent exhibitions in Paris, Helsinki, and St. Petersburg have already garnered international attention, and her Miami presentation at Marquez Art Projects adds a fresh chapter to her ongoing dialogue around identity, memory, and material culture. For visitors stepping into the gallery, the experience is as much about aesthetic appreciation as it is about psychological unraveling.

Through brushwork that captures the sheen of silk, the softness of wool, or the stiffness of denim with almost photographic accuracy, Gamulina invites us to consider how much we reveal—or choose to hide—through what we wear. At a time when self-image is curated more than ever through screens and social media feeds, her work brings us back to something tactile, textured, and timeless.

Daria Gamulina’s work is on view at Marquez Art Projects, Miami, from June 17 through July 15, 2025.