Something happened when you saw this. What was it?
Tell us. One click.
not for me moves me
Thank you. Every response becomes part of this painting's story.
Painting profile

Share this painting

Copy the text below to send via message, email, or WhatsApp.

Medium:Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date:2023
Collection:Geometric Splendor
Theme: Squares, grids, bands, frames, diagonals, architectural order, or hard-edge compositional structure.
Palette: Steel Blue · Off White · Rust Red · Tarnished Silver · Warm Black
Status: SOLD

Circle Barbed Wire (2023) is a painting about protection and pain — and how the two often intertwine. Part of the Geometric Splendor Collection, this 48 x 48 inch mixed media work brings together the visual elegance of symmetry with the sharpness of emotional boundaries.

The focal point is a loop — a circle that could be a crown, a fence, or a halo. But it’s not soft. It’s wrapped in barbed textures, etched and pulled into the surface like a memory that resists erasure. Around it, washes of steel blue, off-white, and rust echo the tension between beauty and harm.

I created Circle Barbed Wire while thinking about the emotional architecture we build — how we create shapes to guard our softness, and how those shapes often hurt. The circle, traditionally a symbol of wholeness, becomes a barrier here. Complete, but untouchable.

This piece aligns with the spirit of Louise Bourgeois, whose forms are both delicate and dangerous — holding trauma in tactile, intimate materials. Like Bourgeois, I’m drawn to contradictions: comfort and threat, roundness and rupture.

The painting isn’t about violence. It’s about resilience. About what it takes to hold space for oneself when the world feels sharp.

As part of the Geometric Splendor Collection, Circle Barbed Wire stands as both shield and offering — a visual mantra for boundaries that protect, even when they leave a mark.

Ritu Raj | Contemporary Abstract Painter | Phoenix

Ritu Raj is a contemporary abstract painter based in Phoenix, Arizona. His signature technique, Organic Movement, replaces the brush with thread — tracing the exact tension between control and surrender that holds a painting in motion. He has created over 200 original works collected across the US, Europe, and Asia, and is the author of the forthcoming The Shape of Seeing and The Unalgorithmic Self.

https://www.rituart.com/
Previous
Previous

Life Scratches

Next
Next

Mysterious UFO in Motion