In Daria Petrilli’s artworks the female figures appear ethereal and unreachable. The artist inserts them into a fairy-tale afterlife where they are often accompanied by animals. In clothes from a distant era, these pale Victorian beauties may look to the viewer with a piercing gaze. Some extend long fingers into the nothingness, reminiscent of the Italian Mannerist painter Bronzino. In Daria Petrilli’s extraordinary works, the women become mystical beings, their bodies adorned with shells and flowers. They are surrounded by ibises, parrots, or geese that appear more like the heralds of