Sona in Blue: Portrait of Memory and Distance

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2020

Sona in Blue (2020) is a 48 x 48 inch acrylic painting from my ReThink Collection, a body of work centered around disruption, vulnerability, and the invitation to see differently. This piece, in particular, emerged from a quiet yet persistent meditation on memory — not as a recollection of events, but as a felt presence, often uncertain, elusive, and emotionally charged.

The central figure in Sona in Blue is rendered in layers of cool, atmospheric blues. She appears suspended, almost vanishing into the background, her form softened and blurred, as if caught between arriving and leaving. I was less interested in a literal depiction than in capturing the sensation of someone remembered — how memory distorts, softens, and sometimes reimagines.

This work plays with the idea of absence as a kind of presence. The figure is central, yet ambiguous. Her edges waver. She asserts herself not through definition, but through suggestion. The color palette evokes longing, melancholy, and quiet endurance — emotions that coexist and contradict each other, much like memory itself.

In creating Sona in Blue, I was influenced by artists such as Marlene Dumas, who explore intimacy without clarity, emotion without narrative. Like Dumas, I’m drawn to the figure not as portrait but as atmosphere — a shape that evokes rather than explains.

This painting is not about a person. It’s about the ghost of connection — the echo of someone who once was or might have been. A stillness that speaks.

As part of my continued journey through abstraction and the emotional landscape, Sona in Blue asks viewers to linger in uncertainty. To reflect on what it means to remember, to imagine, and to lose — all at once.