Drawing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mother and father spoke different languages at home and, until I was about two, I didn’t speak at all. I drew instead. I have always found it easier to say things with a pencil. It became a language where I could be entirely myself and one of the first places where I felt I belonged.
I grew up between portuguese and eastern european cultural backgrounds, surrounded by stories, traditions and very different ways of looking at the world. In my practice I often think about belonging and memory. About the places people come from and the communities they create. I’m drawn to people and to the lives that unfold around me. Workers, migrants, women. I like learning how they live, what they make and what they fight for. Collective memory, class struggle and resistance naturally find their way into my work.
It often begins with something small: a memory, a sentence or a story someone has told me. Through analogue techniques, I combine materials, textures and anything that happens to land in my hands, to build my own visual world. I like narratives that can feel familiar and inviting, while carrying something more underneath. I want to push people to question their surroundings and take an active political stake in their communities. Democratic access to culture is fundamental to how we grow, resist and build collective consciousness.
Over the years, I have participated in exhibitions, including “Underground, what about the non-visible” at the École Supérieure d'Art et Design in Saint-Étienne and “Revolution” at the Aljube Museum in Lisbon. I have also contributed to the research project [in]visible, exploring the representation of identities in Portuguese school textbooks and led illustration workshops for children with youth associations including Projecto Ruído and FAP no Bairro. I’m currently finishing my Master’s Degree in Illustration, Publishing and Printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.
Say hi or send enquiries to: danielasirotkina@gmail.com :)
Exhibitions
20262025
2024
2023
Residencies
20262024
An all-encompassing project that brings together illustration, architecture, geology, and urban geography through the practice of lithograph. -https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2425517 /2439186
Workshops & Research
20252024
Education
2026Master’s Degree in Illustration, Publishing, and Printmaking, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
2022
Postgraduate Diploma in Illustration, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
2021
Postgraduate Diploma in Graphic Design, Lisbon School of Design