2020 Abstract Paintings | Transformative Contemporary Art by Ritu Raj

In 2020, the world paused—and so did I. Cut off from the rhythms of daily life, I turned inward, returning to painting after decades in business and technology. My San Francisco loft became a studio, sanctuary, and stage for exploration.

I began small, working on 2x2 foot canvases where acrylic paint carried gestures of confinement, memory, and hope. As the months unfolded, so did my practice. The canvases grew to 5x5 feet, filled with layered fields of color, fractured forms, and playful geometries.

Acrylic became my medium of choice, holding contradictions—quick yet deliberate, vibrant yet subtle, allowing control and surrender in the same stroke. Through drips, spontaneous marks, and layered textures, I processed a year marked by isolation and quiet revelation.

This 2020 collection is not a diary of events. It is a record of tension and release, nostalgia and urgency, presence and disappearance. Paintings like Black Heart, Broccolini, and Delta Variant each hold their own reflection of a year when abstraction became both survival and celebration.

For me, these works mark the moment I fully embraced abstraction as a way of seeing, feeling, and transforming the world inside and around me.