Artist’s Description

In July 2022, Kyiv was still strangely quiet. Many people had left the city, and in my apartment building only a few homes remained inhabited.

One day, someone left a cat in the courtyard. He came to my apartment door and began to meow. I opened the door, and he simply walked in.

For the first few months, he was remarkably polite. He hardly ever came near the entrance door, as if he understood that he had been given a safe place and did not want to risk losing it.

Things have changed.

Today, he is unquestionably the owner of the house. I simply live here and do my best to follow his instructions.

This painting grew from watching those small, ordinary moments of our life together. The woman in the room is me; the black cat in the foreground is him — the little stranger who appeared at my door during one of the strangest periods of my life.

I love watching him wake up, stretch, proudly presenting his backside to the world, and then march toward the kitchen as if beginning another important day.
The open doorway is where our story began: he was outside, I opened the door, and he came in.

The painting is about much more than a cat. It is about how a home can become a home again because another living creature decides to enter it.
And perhaps about the strange way love works: sometimes you think you are rescuing someone, and only later realize that they came to rescue you.

Dutch acrylic paints Amsterdam™ and Italian canvas by Unico were used. The finish is satin varnish, and the edges are painted in the background color. This painting is created on a pre-stretched canvas on a wooden frame. It is carefully packed in a cardboard box with layers of bubble wrap. The artwork is signed and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Collector’s Insight

Bagatskaya is at the height of her powers here, and The Cat Who Chose My Home may be her most fully realised work. The composition is structured around a sequence of thresholds — doorframe within doorframe, room opening into room — that creates a deep recession of space rendered with genuine painterly skill. The diamond-tiled floors shift from orange and navy in the foreground to black and white beyond, the perspective carefully constructed, the light falling with the kind of quiet authority you find in Dutch interior painting.

And then there is the cat. He dominates the foreground with magnificent indifference — arched back, tail high, golden eyes fixed directly on the viewer, his glossy black fur painted with real attention to light and texture. Behind him, framed by the doorway, the artist sits on a low stool in the next room, watching with the patient, fond expression of someone who has accepted her new role in the household without complaint. Above her on the wall, a framed painting of the same cat — imperial, holding a coffee mug — confirms the domestic hierarchy with perfect deadpan humour.

The painting-within-a-painting is a masterstroke. It anchors the work’s gentle comedy while also deepening its emotional register: this cat has been painted, has been framed, has been given a place on the wall. He is not just a pet. He is the subject.

Collectors who appreciate figurative painting with compositional intelligence, dry wit, and genuine emotional warmth will find this an exceptional acquisition. It is also — beneath the humour — a painting about survival, about what makes a home feel inhabited again, and about the unlikely sources of comfort that find us in difficult times.

Materials & Presentation

• Original acrylic painting on canvas
• Amsterdam™ Dutch acrylic paints on Unico™ Italian canvas
• Artwork size: 31.5 × 39.5 inches (80 × 100 cm)
• Style: Eclecticism / Year: 2026
• Finished with satin varnish; edges painted in background colour
• Pre-stretched canvas on a wooden frame
• Signed by the artist
• Certificate of authenticity included
• Carefully packed in cardboard with bubble wrap for safe delivery