The main feature of Irina Starzhenetskaya’s works is the transmission of memories, feelings and emotions into the language of colors and lines. Not only the communication of the state of mind but also the passion for the painting itself is characteristic for the artist. Her works often look like a sketchy cursive – instant impromptu that fixes the impressions and the atmosphere of what is seen. The image is almost always ready to be disembodied; it is on the verge of abstraction. Color nearly loses touch with the form, becomes a liberated carrier of an idea – an echo of what happened "outside" the events that emerges in the soul.

The painting with a very specific title "Four people in the garden" is a cropped composition with very vaguely drafted figures. They are close to us – at the very border of the canvas, but we cannot disassemble the faces of the individuals depicted. We perceive only their liveliness, enthusiasm, jubilation. The landscape is depicted just as conditionally, and it is hard to understand, whether the people rejoice the sky and the garden, or the garden "articulates" their state that is near to happiness.

Oksana Voronina