Artist Darina Bratkova
Darina Bratkova: Elevating Reality Through Light, Stillness, and Emotional Depth
Darina Bratkova is a contemporary artist from Kyiv, Ukraine, whose work blends realism, atmosphere, and emotional expression. She holds a Master of Arts degree from the Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts and has been painting professionally for more than 15 years, continuously developing her distinct artistic voice and her deep understanding of light, space, and emotional perception.
After the war began in Ukraine, Darina relocated to Florida. The ocean, open space, sky, and light became a new source of inspiration for her. This is where her new collections were born—filled with quiet stillness, soft radiance, airy transparency, and deep inner emotion. Florida became not only a new home but a place where her art gained a new rhythm: more contemplative, spacious, and emotionally enriched.
Today, Darina is known for her harmonious blend of atmospheric realism, expressive texture, tonal painting, and contemporary minimalism. Her boats, horizons, and water surfaces are rendered with recognizable realism, but the true power of her work lies in the mood: a quiet stillness, a soft haze, and the luminous breath of light surrounding each subject. Her confident brushstrokes create movement and emotion, while her serene compositions open space for introspection.
For Darina, painting is a way to speak about the quietest feelings that cannot be expressed in words— those moments when the world becomes still and we can finally hear ourselves.
In her work, the sky and the ocean become metaphors for inner emotion—calm or turbulent, the kinds that live deep within us. And the boats symbolize the journey: the challenges we have overcome and the paths that lead us toward our dreams. Each viewer discovers their own meaning in these symbols, because they belong not to the external world but to our inner experience.
Darina’s works are part of private collections in both Ukraine and the United States. Her artistic journey continues to evolve, revealing new dimensions of light, stillness, and the inner world. And this is only the beginning.