Within - 2025 

Oil pastel on cotton board

61x45.7cm 

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ABOUT THE ARTWORK

“Everything starts from a dot.” — Wassily Kandinsky. At its purest, the dot represents the inner necessity to express the self. "Within" builds on this idea, seeking to translate the emotional essence of the inner self into colour and form through a geometric abstract language.

In “Within”, circles embody the depths of the inner self, drawing on Saloua Raouda Choucair’s exploration of geometry and her use of proportions derived from the circle. These forms are rendered in warm shades of red and purple, symbolizing energy, power, courage, creativity, and strength. Along the outer edges of the composition, vertical rectangular forms hold earthy greens, browns, and light blue, grounding the self in both body and earth. The light blue symbolises limitless opportunities for growth.

The overall balance of color is informed by Gunta Stölzl’s experimental approach, seeking expressive values of depth and luminosity.

“Within” reflects on the resilience and inner strength that enable women to keep moving forward, drawing power from within to pursue their ideals and ambitions.

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Liliana TELO ​​

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Liliana Telo (b. 1980) is an emerging Portuguese artist based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, whose work is shaped by the interplay between visual rigor and emotional intuition. The work is informed by a two-decade foundation in Design and Urban Design from the Universidade da Madeira and Oxford Brookes University, respectively.

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Telo’s work centres on themes of womanhood, engaging with the emotionally raw and deeply personal. Through an innately self-reflective process, her art seeks to deconstruct ingrained patterns of trauma within the inner self, exploring the multiplicity of female experiences, challenging inherited vulnerabilities, and asserting resilience.

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Process is at the core of Telo’s work, rooted in concepts of pattern and deconstruction. Each piece begins with a structure of repeated figurative forms in black brushlines. This foundation is then methodically stripped of its figurative values, translating into an abstract language through the simplification of form and the use of color symbolism. Telo seeks to move beyond the limitations of representation to reveal the inner self. Her practice intentionally navigates the duality between visual rigor and emotional intuition, with the process itself often serving as a profound form of healing and resolution.