♡ Seeing Beyond the Surface

The Quiet Power of Stillness in Art.

Stillness isn’t empty — it’s alive with presence. It’s where we hear what the world usually drowns out.
Where truth rises to meet us — our own, and sometimes someone else’s.
For me, stillness is where the deepest connection to art begins.

Stillness opens us to the hidden language of art — the stories that live beneath the surface.
It allows us to feel more than we see, inviting body and spirit to sense what the mind can’t always explain.

I often lose myself (for hours) in galleries and museums. Art is oxygen — something I need simply to keep breathing. One of my favourite places to wander in Sydney is the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It was the first gallery I visited after moving to Australia.

I still remember entering the Aboriginal art collection and being greeted by a yellow-hued painting — radiant, alive, almost smiling at me. I smiled back instinctively. There was such joy in it. I could feel the artist’s presence in every flick of the brush, as if sunshine had been poured onto canvas. It felt like meeting someone through light and colour.

Further in, a series of solemn, grounding sculptures stopped me in my tracks. They held so much history, pain, and spirit that I quietly wept. I felt the presence of ancestors, and of the land itself, speaking through the work. This wasn’t performance. This was raw honesty. Sacred stillness.

That’s what art can do. It bypasses the intellect and speaks directly to the soul.

Stillness During Chaos

These reflections feel even more urgent now.
We are living in deeply unsettled times — where the world roars with war, injustice, illness, division, and noise.

And when so many people, including your loved ones, are affected by grief, cancer, conflict, or systems that fail, the chaos isn’t just “out there.” It enters the body. It inhabits your day. It spills into your studio. On those days, stillness becomes the only way to be. Stillness becomes my medicine. My refuge. My prayer.

I paint not to escape the pain, but to hold it — to honour it — and gently transform it. In stillness, I remember who I am.

The most powerful things in life do not shout — they whisper.

There are days that I just let the brush move and colours call my name. I highly recommend that everyone try to create without any expectations. That’s how healing begins — not in answers, but in presence.

Stillness as a Spiritual Experience

Some of the most profound artists have understood this.

Agnes Martin painted in silence, with subtle grids and soft washes, like they were disappearing. Her work doesn’t speak loudly — it invites stillness. Standing before one of her canvases feels like sitting in a chapel: quiet, spacious, and held.

Mark Rothko’s vast colour fields draw us inward, into emotions we cannot name. I’ve seen people cry in front of his work without knowing why. It happened to me and many of my clients when seeing my work. That’s what happens when energy becomes visible.

Hilma af Klint — long ignored by the mainstream — painted from visions, intuition, and a deep spiritual place. Her works weren’t made to impress. They were offerings. I’m fascinated by her work, which I would describe in my own words as “spiritual geometry”.

And here in Australia, Emily Kame Kngwarreye shows us that stillness doesn’t mean lack of movement. Her work pulses with ancestral memory and connection to Country. Her paintings are maps of Dreaming — alive with presence. I especially adore her Ntange Dreaming, where I can almost see images moving within the surface.

Emily’s work is currently being honoured in a major exhibition at Tate Modern in London — Emily Kam Kngwarray.

Dear artists, friends, and colleagues in London, please take the opportunity to experience her work. Let it move you. Let it teach you.

A Painting from My Practice — Tranquillity

One of my latest artworks that speaks deeply of stillness is Tranquillity, from the Liberty collection.

It was created in a time when stillness was not only healing, but it was a necessary act to pause. I remember gently swinging my brush from side to side across the canvas, layering soft blends of light and colour. The movement was meditative, and the white light peeking through felt like a sign of home — of return, of rejuvenation.

Several admirers have been drawn to this piece. Some have described seeing a woman reclining on a swing, as if suspended in a heavenly garden — a place of pure rest. I can see it too. Every time I look at Tranquillity, it brings me calm. It reminds me of what it feels like to be held, gently and without demand.

This oil painting with a poem is available for sale — and ready to find its way to a lucky collector.

In My Gallery — A Curated Studio Space

I felt that same quiet reverence when standing before Alyson Hayes’ Understory ceramic light sculptures in my gallery. Their gentle glow stopped me mid-step.

It was as though nature had found a way to sing through light — not loudly, but to be remembered.

That’s what stillness in art offers: remembrance.

Of who we are.

Of where we come from.

Of what truly matters.

People often say I have a “good eye” for art. But I think it’s less about the eye — and more about sensitivity.

Presence.

Energy.

As a curator and art collector, I don’t select work based on status or fashion. I don’t chase names. I follow the pulse.

I choose art that breathes, aches, uplifts.

Art that isn’t trying to fit in — but trying to speak truth.

Be Like Water

So next time you find yourself standing before a painting, a sculpture, a photograph — pause.

Let the noise fade. Let your body speak.

Ask not, “What does this mean?” but rather, “How does this feel?”

Stillness is not absence; it is a presence — deep, emotional, and alive.

And in times like these, perhaps the greatest wisdom — and the greatest art — asks us gently to:

Be like water that flows softly and try to adapt with grace.

Hold what you must and release what you cannot carry.

Shape your world not with force, but with quiet strength over time.

In stillness, I paint, and I write.

I do not create to escape the pain, the past, or the unknown.

I create to hold it — to sit with it — to honour its presence.

And in that tender, intimate space… something shifts.

The weight becomes colour.

The ache finds form.

What once hurt transforms into something that may one day heal — for me, and perhaps for someone else.

Each painting, each poem, is a meditation.

A slow, reverent exhale.

A way of letting sorrow speak — without drowning in it.

A way of letting joy arrive — even if only as a flicker of light across the canvas.

In stillness, I remember who I am.

Not a performer or a producer.

Just a feeling, breathing being — human before anything else.

And in that remembering, I’ve learned something essential:

The most powerful things in life do not shout.

They whisper.

They hum through colour.

They murmur through texture.

They glow quietly, like a lantern in the dark.

Wellness Whispers — my most personal collection yet — will be released in the coming months.

Born from moments of deep emotion, of witnessing illness, grief, a family affected by a war, grace, and healing, of praying through paint…

I hope these works offer calm. Compassion. Softness. Strength. Stillness.

May they become gentle companions for those walking hard roads.

May they remind you — even in your most silent moments —

You are not alone or broken.

You are a light that is already aglow.

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With love and colour,

Mira Corbova

Artist | Curator | Creator of ‘Art & Emotion’

Mira Corbova Art Gallery
www.miracorbova.com