Cerulean Pulse: An Organic Abstract Thread Painting

Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 5ft x 5ft
Creation Date: 2025
Collection: Organic Movement

Cerulean Pulse is a meditation on movement, energy, and the quiet vastness of blue. Created as part of my Organic Movement series, this 5 by 5 foot oil on canvas painting uses my unique thread painting method to channel an elemental sense of flow and force.

The process began with preparing the canvas in layers of rich cerulean oil paint, kept open and workable by blending with linseed oil. Into this wet field of blue, I dipped baker’s twine into lighter shades mixed with oil, then swept and pulled it across the surface. Each pull left behind translucent gestures—swoops, arcs, and tidal curves—like the wake of something powerful passing unseen.

The forms in Cerulean Pulse remind me of oceanic currents or wind streams, yet they remain abstract, free from literal depiction. This is intentional. My practice draws from artists like Clyfford Still and Gerhard Richter, who painted not to represent reality, but to create new visual languages. Where Still used jagged ruptures and Richter used squeegee-blurred atmospheres, I use twine to sculpt the surface, creating textures and movements that transcend brush or blade.

The painting’s title came to me in the studio as I stepped back to view the finished work. There was a palpable pulse in the overlapping strokes, a sense of vibrating stillness. It felt like standing beside the ocean at dawn—quiet yet charged, an immense force contained within delicate rhythm.

Thread painting, or what I call Organic Movement, is my response to an increasingly digital art world. There is no algorithm here, no perfection or replication. Each mark is unrepeatable, born from the physical meeting of twine, oil, and canvas. It is a return to elemental making: oil pigments ground from earth, gestures guided by the body, surfaces that invite close looking and felt experience.

Cerulean Pulse is more than a painting; it is an invocation of water’s power, light’s clarity, and the deep calm that blue brings to the human spirit. For collectors, it offers a space of quiet dynamism—a reminder of what moves within and around us in every moment, whether seen or unseen.

Ritu Raj | Contemporary Abstract Artist | Phoenix

After 30 years as an executive and entrepreneur, I returned to painting full-time to explore what words and strategy couldn’t hold. I create bold, expressive abstract art to shift how we see and feel—opening space for reflection, connection, and quiet transformation. For me, change begins not with certainty, but with listening.

https://www.rituart.com/
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