A Shared Youth

A Shared Youth Based on a photograph from our teenage years, this painting portrays my sister and me seated side by side, sharing a closeness that once felt permanent. Over time, our lives diverged. She married, moved away, and eventually immigrated to Canada, while I remained in Iran. We have not seen each other for more than seven years. Rendered through expressive stains of red and blue, the image oscillates between intimacy and distance. The mirrored composition evokes a reflection on water, where memory appears doubled, unstable, and continuously shifting. Part of the Remembrance: Love and Grief series, this work reflects on attachment across separation. The painting does not attempt to preserve a moment unchanged, but to revisit it through longing, transforming a shared past into a space where absence and connection coexist.