Daria Aksenova is an artist known for her suspended narrative shadowboxes made with layers of paper and ink. Aksenova focuses her work on telling stories of mythology and folklore with the use of cinematography through constructed dynamism of layering hand-cut and inked paper to make her complex works. These works are then suspended inside decorative boxes for all to view and enjoy.

Aksenova’s work is primarily in black and white and the reason she uses that color scheme over using more colorful variations is that it challenges her creativity by removing the distraction of colors to pay more attention to the details of composition, anatomy, light, tone, and narrative. Technically, Aksenova’s work isn’t fully achromatic since some of her inks have sepia and blue undertones that add some subtle coloring to her work, but primarily nothing more colorful beyond that.

Aksenova has stated that her “mission is to bring back our childhood imaginations that are drowned out by the everyday bustle in our ever-busy lives.” So Aksenova turned to children’s stories of folklore and mythology in order to “draw the viewer back to the [stories] of their youth, hoping to create artwork that inspires the dreamer within.”