A surrealist portrait in which a figure stands in a garden that does not follow horticultural logic — plants that belong to different climates and seasons grow together, the paths lead back to their own beginnings, and the light falls from multiple simultaneous sources. The figure at the centre surveys it all with complete composure.
Acrylic allowed the dense layering that the image required. Each plant was painted separately, worked up to a high degree of naturalistic detail, before being returned to the impossible context the garden provides. The contrast between botanical accuracy and spatial impossibility is deliberate.
About the artist
Simona Apostol's paintings do not start with a subject — they begin with a colour, a texture, or a word, and the image that emerges during painting is accepted rather than planned. This approach means her work has the emotional intensity of expressionism, the formal organisation of abstract work, and occasional recognisable imagery that appears as if by accident.
She has developed this practice over more than a decade, resisting the pressure to make her process more legible or her imagery more consistent. She accepts commissions rarely, and only from collectors comfortable not knowing what the finished painting will look like.
