Stylized abstract painting of a fish in bright colors and fluid lines, evoking movement, joy, and pop symbolism by Ritu Raj

Fish

Medium: Mixed Media on Wood
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2025
Collection: Pop Art

Fish (2025) swims between symbolism and abstraction — a painting that offers both a wink and a wave, as it explores form, movement, and the playful simplicity of iconic imagery. This 36 x 36 inch mixed media on wood piece is part of the Pop Art Collection, where familiar subjects are reimagined through color, shape, and surface.

The composition features a stylized fish form, suspended in an aqua-toned field with radiant pinks, tangerine, and deep ink lines outlining the curves. Instead of realism, the fish is reduced to essential gestures — tail, fins, eye — rendered with bold economy and layered textures. Resin glazes shimmer across the surface, making it feel submerged and dynamic.

I painted Fish in the spirit of lightness. Of movement. Of non-serious seriousness. The fish became a stand-in for everything elusive: thought, time, dreams, memory. Easy to see, hard to hold.

This piece connects with the clean iconography of Keith Haring, whose lines transformed everyday forms into energetic, cultural signals. Like Haring, I believe simplicity can carry weight — that joy can have depth.

Fish does not live in water. It lives in motion. It invites you to drift, to look, to not overthink.

As part of the Pop Art Collection, this work glides across play and abstraction, inviting presence through charm.