Field Notes from the Cultural Apothecary
Under a sky of stars and a gentle half-moon, a woman stands wrapped in a soft veil of night. Her white hair glows faintly in the darkness, her face serene, as if listening to a silence deeper than words. In her arms she holds a bouquet of flowers - fragile, radiant offerings to the world around her.
The painting is a quiet prayer for harmony. It speaks of peace not as the absence of conflict, but as a luminous presence - the stillness born from compassion and friendship with all living beings.
A white deer runs through a boundless plain, its body shimmering like breath upon snow. A saddle of ornament rests on its back - an offering, a crown, a secret burden. Above, the sky unfolds in filigree arabesques beneath a full, watchful moon.
The deer moves not though distance but through states of being. It rises and descends, seeking the realm between worlds - the threshold of the soul where form dissolves into spirit. In this endless motion, the creature becomes both guide and reflection: purity in flight, mystery in motion, the silence that binds heaven and earth.
Across cultures and centuries, the deer has carried myth and meaning - a symbol of grace, passage, and the divine connection. In Kazuga Deer, the animal becomes a sacred messenger, inspired by its role in Shinto belief as a bridge between the earthly and the spiritual.
A white deer stands beneath a tree alive with birdsong, its body adorned with a colourful saddle and blanket shimmering in quiet ceremony. Above it, a celestial dome unfolds - patterned with delicate arabesques, a sky both protective and infinite.
The painting invites the viewer to journey “between here and not here,” where nature spirit meet, and every breath carries a trace of the divine.
Inspired by the Mafrāj (مفراج) - the rooftop room of Yemeni houses where families gather at day’s end - this painting lingers in the hush between sunlight and night. A richly patterned red carpet spreads across the floor, layered with others like memories woven into comfort. Slender columns frame the view outward, where cypress trees and gardens breathe beneath a sky washed in rose.
Birds drift toward the trees, and the air hums with the faint music of a Oud, an Arabian lute. in this quiet elevation above the world, Dusk over the Mafraj becomes a meditation on warmth, belonging, and the beauty of shared silence as the day folds gently into the evening.
