I didn’t set out to paint a desert.
I set out to survive one.
Third piece of The Blue Desert in progress
The Blue Desert series began the way most of my paintings do — with a weight I couldn’t name and a color I couldn’t ignore.
Blue. Not sky blue. Not cheerful. Deep, bruised, haunting shades of blue. Each Piece displays different emotional states through hard or blended brush strokes and hues ranging from light and mid blue-ish greens to dark, moody blues.
This was the color of silence.
Of solitude.
Of what it means to wander — not in punishment, but in preparation.
These paintings aren’t planned.
I don’t sketch them.
I listen to them. I listen to the ache, the yearning, the sadness in me that wants to be seen.
And in that listening, something unexpected happens:
The desert becomes beautiful.
Not because it’s easy. But because it’s honest.
And if there’s one thing I’m learning to do — as an artist, as a woman, as the Unrefined Queen — it’s this:
Honor what is honest.
If you’ve been wandering, I see you.
If you’ve lost words, but still dream in color — I see you.
This place was made for both of us.
— the_unrefined_queen
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✨ Explore the Blue Desert series at www.wovenlightstudio.com coming soon (Saturday 9 August 18:00 CET) sneakpeeks available Friday 8 August posted to Instagram @the_unrefined_queen
✨ New journal entries posted every Wednesday
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In the Studio
My studio is small but sacred to me. I love that I have to involve various spaces in my home to create.
My space is mine, it’s sometimes too messy with multiple canvasses spread drying on any available flat surface, paint marks on the dining table and brushes drying on the bathroom sink, but I know that I am safe to claim my spaces as an artist.