A portrait of quiet resilience
In Between Dreams began not with a brush, but with a feeling. The suspended, luminous space between sleeping and waking, where the mind is both still and restless.
Every painting begins with a question.
For this portrait, the question was:
What does it look like when a person is quietly blooming from within?
The story behind the portrait
The portrait was commissioned by Lily, someone I know personally and one of Petey Art's greatest supporters. She already owns another Petey Art work, You Are Beautiful, together with its accompanying poem. Creating this second piece allowed me to honour the quiet resilience I have witnessed in her.
Lily's journey has held tumultuous seasons. The particulars belong to her, but what I can share is how she has moved through them: delicate yet strong, weathered but not diminished.
Rather than depicting her trials. in between dreams, honours the woman who moved through them without losing her softness, strength or capacity to bloom. Its title reflects a threshold between sleep and waking, stillness and movement, what has passed and what is still becoming.
The figure came first
The portrait began in charcoal and graphite.
The face emerged gradually.. grounded, intimate and quiet. Before the composition carried its brilliant yellows, oranges and greens, it was almost entirely monochromatic.
Her steady gaze became the centre of the work, holding presence and an interior life that remains her own. Her resilience is expressed not through an illustration of her experiences, but through the relationship between the stillness of the figure and the changing world around her.
The language of the flora
Colour entered In Between Dreams slowly, from the edges. I kept a living lily beside the canvas as I worked, watching how its petals folded, opened and caught the light.
The monochromatic figure is surrounded by radiant yellows, living greens, deep oranges and subtle touches of gold. The contrast distinguishes Lily from the changing season around her while keeping her connected to it.
The oversized lily represents renewal and becoming. The smaller botanical forms trace the passage of time, reminding us that everything happens in seasons: difficulty, waiting, healing and eventual flourishing.
This, too, shall pass.
A difficult season may shape us, but it need not define us. Lily's steady gaze anchors the composition while the flora changes around her. She is not consumed by the season; she remains present within it delicate, composed and strong.
The finished portrait
Created over several weeks of conversation, observation and revision, the finished work exists between stillness and transformation.
The figure remains monochromatic while colour flourishes around her. Gold gathers across her brow, the lily rises above her and smaller plants reach inward from both sides of the canvas.
She is not waiting to become resilient.
She already is.
In Between Dreams is both a portrait and a threshold, a meeting place between memory and possibility, the person we have been and the person still becoming.
Watch the process: https://youtube.com/shorts/oXujdJ04gS4
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Artwork details
Title: in between dreams
Artist: Itai Mambo
Year: 2026
Medium: Acrylic, charcoal and graphite on canvas
Dimensions: 16 × 20 inches
Status: Commissioned original · Private collection
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Commission your own story
Every Petey Art commission begins with a conversation.
A commissioned portrait can honour a season, preserve a story or give form to what words cannot express.
If you would like an original artwork rooted in your story, identity or becoming, I would love to hear from you.
1 Kommentar
Amazing that every piece she commissions has a story to it. This makes it very personal and truly meaningful. A work of art indeed.