5 Artworks We’re Keeping on Our Heart list This Week
At Arts to Hearts Project, art is pretty much part of our everyday life. We see it all day, every day, paintings arriving in our inboxes, artists appearing on our feeds, new work being shared from studios around the world. There is always something to discover, and with so much incredible art out there, we’re constantly finding new artists who deserve to be seen.
But even when you see a lot of art, certain works still manage to stop you.
You know the feeling. You’re scrolling through, taking everything in, and suddenly a painting makes you pause. You look at it again. Then again. Maybe you love it immediately, maybe you’re trying to figure it out, or maybe you just can’t explain why you’re still looking.
Those are the paintings we want to put on our Heart List.
This week, five works stood out to us in exactly that way. Five paintings that made us pause, look twice, and want to share them with you.
So, let’s get into this week’s Heart List..
Our Favourite No. 5 is Light of Wisdom by Mitra Zeinali @mitra_mantus
Our No. 5 on this week’s heart list is this huge, glittering acrylic painting by Mitra Zeinali. a whole cast of pale, theatrical figures gathered in the dark, cheeks marked with heavy circles of rouge, wine lifted, and the strangest, most beautiful chaos going on around them. And honestly, it took us a minute to even work out what we were looking at, which is exactly why we loved it. A woman in an embroidered dress gazes up on one side. A figure in a black-and-white striped jacket sits in the middle with a coupe of red wine and a big red bow at the throat. Another face rests on a hand at the edge, just watching. Around them the scene bursts into life a lit candle, an open birdcage with a little bird still perched on it, thick tropical leaves, a pink flamingo curving its long neck up through the middle of everything.
That single candle flame is the light the title is talking about: one small, steady point of it in the middle of all that lush, decadent noise. Mitra is a Dubai-based visual artist, and this is exactly what her work does she builds these dense, jewel-toned worlds where people, animals and plants crowd in together until you simply cannot look away. The painting stands two metres tall, and it fills every inch.
Go visit her page and see everything she has been making, it is absolutely worth your time.
Our Favourite No. 4 is Simbiyoz by Tuna Özkaragöz @tunaozkaragozz
So, our No. 4 is Turkish for symbiosis a stunning oil painting by Istanbul artist Tuna Özkaragöz, and she means that title about as literally as a painting can. Two figures lie tangled together, both fast asleep, their heads resting into each other, one with red hair and one with pink, wrapped in the same soft lavender cloth. Their arms and legs overlap so completely you can barely tell them apart a hand cradling, legs crossed, one foot still in a blue sock, a bare foot slipping out at the bottom. A wide swathe of golden fur spreads across the middle, warm against the deep blue behind them. Nothing is happening, and that is the whole point: two people so close they have become a single thing.
What really got us is the way it is painted smooth, rounded, almost sculptural, every fold and finger given this soft, heavy calm. Tuna is represented by Sevil Dolmacı Gallery, and she works mostly in this register: hushed, intimate, faintly surreal scenes of bodies and closeness. It is a very still painting, and honestly very hard to walk away from.
Visit her page and see everything she has been working on, it is absolutely worth your time.
Our Favourite No. 3 is I’ll Be Your Mirror by Meghann Stephenson @meghannstephenson
Our favourite at number 3 is I’ll Be Your Mirror by Meghann Stephenson. At first, you might notice just one woman but look a little closer and you’ll see her appear three times one leaning toward us in the foreground, another sitting in a soft white dress and applying red lipstick, and a third appearing as a reflection in the round mirror beside her.
They all have the same face and wear the same pale, ruffled cotton, while the warm browns and creams of the painting are broken up by that one beautiful touch of red.
There’s something quietly intimate about the work. It captures those little moments of looking at yourself, getting ready, and simply being alone with your own reflection. By showing the same woman in different places, Meghann makes the scene feel like a glimpse into several versions of the same person.
Born in 1990 in McLean, Virginia, Meghann earned her BFA from Parsons in 2013 and is now based in Los Angeles. I’ll Be Your Mirror was also the title piece of her solo show at Half Gallery. It is calm, warm, and completely sure of itself, and we could not stop coming back to it.
Find her work and give her a follow, she is the kind of painter you discover once and keep for good.
Our Favourite No. 2 is Drover Under Loony Sky by Phil Meatchem @philmeatchem
Climbing to No. 2 this week is this realistic painting Drover Under Loony Sky by Phil Meatchem, and it is about as gloriously Australian as a painting gets. A lone drover sits easy on a chestnut horse, hat pulled down low, a soft pink shirt against all that heat, riding at a walk across dry golden grassland. Behind him the sky is a flat, blazing red with a few pale clouds the “loony” sky of the title and horse and rider throw one long shadow across the scrub. It is a simple scene, but that red does something to it, turning an ordinary ride home into something big and strange and a little dreamlike.
Phil is an Australian painter based on the Central Coast of New South Wales, working in acrylic, and he is best known for his portraits and caricatures a repeat finalist in prizes like the Doug Moran, the Percival and the Bald Archies. But he keeps returning to Australian life and its characters: drovers, stockmen, old bushrangers, the odd surfer. He painted this one as a nod to a musician he loves, and you can feel that ballad quality running all through it.
See more of his work and give him a follow, you will want to keep an eye on what he does next.
Our Favourite No. 1 is Lost and Confused by Josh @joshuniverse
And our favourite of the week goes to Josh’s Lost and Confused. It’s the kind of painting that gives you something new to notice every time you look at it. It is a lot to take in all at once, and that is exactly the point. A young man stands at the centre, bare-chested, head tipped back and a hand thrown up near his face, and the whole natural world seems to be pouring out of him at once blue feathered wings on one shoulder, orange monarch butterflies on the other, a tiger’s face pressing through, bright birds and koi and flowers, a clear bubble on his chest with something moving inside it, all of it wrapped in thick green jungle with a little patch of deep space up in the corner. It is beautiful and completely overwhelming, both at once.
Josh did not want to over-explain this one. His only note was that it is about being busy, anxious and uncertain, but having just enough faith to keep going and he said the title covers the rest. It is oil on canvas, every inch crammed with colour and life and noise. You come away feeling a little like the man in it: swamped, but still standing. That is why it sat with us the longest.
Find his work and give him a follow, this is an artist whose next piece we will absolutely be watching for.
And that’s our Heart List for the week. Five paintings we loved, and five artists we think deserve a little extra attention. If one of these stayed with you, head over to their page and tell them. Leave a comment, share their work, or send a little encouragement their way. It only takes a moment, but for the person on the other side of the artwork, it can mean a lot.
One more thing before you go. So much of this week came back to the human figure the face, the body, the feeling sitting just under the surface which makes it exactly the right moment to mention the 101 Art Book: Faces Edition by Arts to Hearts Project. It is the 14th edition in the 101 Art Book series: a hardcover, published and shipped worldwide, bringing 101 artists together around one subject, the human face. It is open right now every medium, every background, 101 spots. If that sounds like your work, go and submit.
