Golden Stars: Everyday Sacredness

In Golden Stars: Everyday Sacredness, Anna Samoylova presents a new series of works about her daily life with her daughter. The self-portraits, taken on her phone, capture small fragments of care and routine: feeding, playing, sleeping, hugging. By turning these images into linoprints and embroidering them with golden threads, glass beads, and pearls, the artist brings these moments back to the physical world, where they can be seen and held with care. Each piece becomes both a document and an offering, showing the time, attention, and labour that shape her everyday life.

The work moves between two visual languages: the sacred image and the digital photograph. Where the phone’s camera roll gathers endless traces of care, carving a linocut and embroidering allow her to slow down and return to these moments through touch. This process combines the invisible labour of care with the visible labour of making, connecting motherhood with artistic practice.

In the culture Anna grew up with, there was a strong tradition of making small hand-made Orthodox icons for private devotion, often adorned by women for protection and care. The artist’s new works recall this practice, but the gold and pearls she embroiders with are not meant for God. They honour the everyday, the unseen labour of tenderness, care, and exhaustion that fills a life.

The placement of the artworks slightly above eye level references how icons are often displayed, raised as if to be looked up to. Here, though, the viewer looks up not at saints or gods, but at a mother and her love for her daughter.

(Sophie Nowakowska)