Blooming Underneath V

Oil on Canvas

24 x 18 Inches

2023

As an element, water best symbolizes the process of passage: flux and transition from one state to another. Keiye Miranda explores a new facet to her iconic paintings of bodies in water: as a space where symbols for the transience of things are suspended.

It revolves around personal reflections on loss, life and death, memory and time. The resulting images, captured through the act of painting, magnify these quiet states of fragility: blossoms eventually wilt and wither, while boats move away to other places. The act of submersion is associated in various cultures with rites of cleansing and purification; while water itself connotes sojourns both physical and symbolic. Combining the two, Miranda’s paintings point to how things can be momentarily purified, revisited and seen anew amidst the momentariness of existence.