Bystrova seeks answers to larger philosophical questions about how cultural context and perceptions of reality shape our understanding of the world we live in. As a Ukrainian artist living in Paris for almost three decades, she is keenly aware of the impact of the surrounding environment and, to that end, offers a ‘sampling’ – of landscapes, nature, organic elements using the traditional practice of en plein-air painting outdoors. Their immediate, fresh, less calculated expression could be said to both embrace the phenomenon of ambiguity, and offer a mechanism for overcoming it, by focusing on the painting’s formal elements.