The "Intro"

I spent three decades inside a world defined by clarity, speed, and control. Every decision was measured. Every minute accounted for. Every goal, a line on a strategy map. It was a life built on precision — analysing, exhilarating, demanding, and, at times, consuming.For years, I believed that leadership meant carrying weight with grace, never hesitating, never slowing down. I was surrounded by people who thrived on ambition and logic, and I learned to excel within  that structure. But somewhere between the constant motion and the polished meetings, I began to lose the sound of my own voice. When I finally paused(Mid-2024) — truly paused — what I heard was silence.Not emptiness, but a silence full of potential. The kind that invites something new to emerge. That was the beginning of my metamorphosis.

The "Threshold"

Leaving the corporate world wasn’t a single act of courage; it was a gradual surrender. At first, I tried to carry the same rules into my new life — goals, outcomes, performance indicators. But art refused to be managed. It demanded vulnerability. It required me to listen instead of direct. When I first touched a blank canvas, I didn’t know it would become my new language. I only knew that words had limits, and that emotions — the ones I had buried under efficiency and professionalism — were asking to breathe. Colours became my vocabulary. Texture became my syntax. Each layer of sand, gesso, and pigment spoke what I could not yet say aloud: that transformation is not about erasing who you were, but allowing all versions of yourself to coexist.

The "Dual Energy"

In leadership, I lived by masculine energy: decisive, analytical, outward-facing. In art, I met its counterpart — the feminine: receptive, intuitive, inwardly expansive.
Neither is superior; both are sacred. I discovered that creation happens precisely where these two meet. Too much structure and art becomes rigid. Too much flow and it dissolves into chaos. The same is true for life. Painting taught me balance. It reminded me that strength can exist in stillness, and that sensitivity is not weakness — it’s wisdom in another form. In many ways, my practice became a reconciliation of energies: the assertive and the yielding, the concrete and the ethereal, the logic that built my past and the intuition that defines my present.

From "Concrete to Nature"

When I moved from the cosmopolitan rhythm of Lisbon (2023) to the quiet immensity of Serra da Estrela, I exchanged glass towers for mountains, asphalt for stone, and meetings for silence. It was not an escape — it was a return. Nature became my mentor. Its textures, erosion, and patience shaped the way I paint. Where the city had taught me to build, the mountains taught me to let go. Now, every canvas begins like a landscape in metamorphosis: sand and pigment colliding, layers forming and dissolving. It’s not about representing nature, but embodying its process — creation through transformation. The "Raw" Collection, "Earth" Collection,  "Spring 2025" Collection and "Nr.36St. " collection  were born from that shift — from city to mountain, from performance to presence. They speak of renewal, surrender, and quiet power.

Art as "Recovery"

I believe art is not a luxury; it’s a way back to ourselves. In a world that values output more than presence, art slows us down enough to feel again.

For me, art is recovery — not of what was lost, but of what was forgotten. The softness, the sensuality, the unmeasured beauty of simply being. Through tactile abstraction, I create not to impress but to soothe, to ground, to restore. My work invites touch — not literal, but emotional. It asks viewers to linger, to breathe, to feel their own reflection in the silence of texture. I paint for spaces that need calm, and for women who have lived their lives carrying others, leading, achieving, performing. My art offers them refuge — a moment where they don’t need to prove, achieve, or explain. Each painting is a quiet act of rebellion against the noise of productivity. It is a reminder that stillness can be powerful, and that healing can happen in silence.

The "Language of Lines"

Across all my collections, no matter how visually distinct, a single thread connects them: "the language of lines". The line that separates and the line that unites. The line that defines a threshold — between worlds, between emotions, between who I was and who I am becoming.  The lines in my work take many forms. They can appear perfect, drawn by the quiet precision of gravity itself — a natural geometry born from flow, not control. They can be textured, emerging from the layered relief of gesso and sand. They can be written, like fragments of thoughts that never became words. Or they can be scratched into the canvas, raw and instinctive, cutting through layers of pigment and memory.   Sometimes the lines separate; sometimes they connect. At times they trace the memory of structure — an echo of the order I once lived by. At others, they break open into fluid gestures, revealing the freedom I had long suppressed. They are not boundaries in the restrictive sense, but living frontiers — places where opposites meet and something new begins. Each line marks a threshold between worlds: between the tangible and the emotional, between discipline and release, between what is seen and what is felt. Each line carries its own tension — the meeting point of opposites. It holds the memory of control and the pulse of freedom, the precision of the mind and the fluidity of emotion. In that tension lives the essence of my work: Lines as tension duality — the threshold where discipline becomes expression, and where the visible world dissolves into the emotional one. This is also the mystery and challenge I offer to my collectors and to those who stand before my paintings: to find that subtle tension in every line — regardless of whether it is perfect or broken, raised in texture or barely visible beneath layers of colour. Each viewer must locate their own reflection in that frontier, feel where the balance tilts, and sense what resonates within them. That search is what I call "Dual Hirathe".

The "Dual Hirathe"

"Dual Hirathe"  it is more than a title; it is my artistic identity — a compass for everything I create. Hirathe” derives from hearth and heart, from warmth and origin, the intimate place where creation begins. “Dual” represents the coexistence of opposites — the two worlds I inhabit: the structured, logical realm of leadership and the intuitive, sensorial world of art. Together, "Dual Hirathe" means the heart in duality — the living intersection where mind and matter, order and emotion, masculine and feminine, converge. It is the pulse behind my practice, the invisible architecture beneath every brushstroke, every texture, every line. When collectors live with my works, they are not simply acquiring an image — they are engaging with that living duality. The line becomes their mirror: a tension they can feel, a threshold they can cross, an invitation to inhabit the space between gravity and grace.

From the very first  "Raw" Collection and the grounding essence of "Earth" Collection to the free improvisation of I"mprovisations", from the renewal of "Spring ’25" and the unapologetic voice of Blues – Breaking Stereotypes (2024) to the deeper explorations of "Liberation", "Topographies", T"he Rain Doesn’t Cry", Here, "There and Everywhere", and "Light as Matter" — every series carries that same visual and emotional signature - the dual hirathe with the language of lines. Even when the palette changes, even when the gestures evolve, the lines remain — as frontiers, as bridges, as portals. They mark the space where opposites meet: logic and intuition, masculine and feminine, silence and sound, power and surrender. The line is not just a visual element; it is the metaphor of my life. It’s the moment of transition — where control dissolves into creation.

“Where logic ends, intuition begins — art becomes emotional freedom.” 

Warm Regards,

To life,

Sonia J.