Bianca Raffaella Along the Lines of Forgetting, 2026

The whole surface is extremely pale. Soft white, blush pink and warm peach wash over one another, creating an almost luminous haze. A mother and baby emerge around the centre of the canvas. Their bodies are held by very fine grey and silver-like lines rather than firm outlines. These delicate contours loop around the head, shoulders and arms, briefly joining one form to another before fading back into the paint. The baby is gathered close against the mother. Around them, broad pale brushstrokes move vertically, so the figures seem to appear from within a veil and then disappear again. There are no hard edges. Everything feels softened by distance.

This painting is about the strange way memory interprets an experience. In the hours after surgery, there were wires, pain, emergency and medical detail. At the time, all of that felt overwhelming. Later, much of it began to fall away. What stayed with me was something much simpler. The outline of holding my baby. That is why the image is so light, and why the figures are only partly there. I wanted it to feel like a memory that has let go of its noise and kept only its most fragile, essential shape.