Held frequency (2026) Original Acrylic Painting by Anika De Souza

Held Frequency unfolds as a dense, immersive field of layered blue – a shifting atmosphere where sound, gesture, and memory converge. Deep teal, indigo, and grey-blue washes accumulate and dissolve across the surface, creating a sense of depth that feels both submerged and expansive. The painting holds a weight – as if something is being contained, sustained, or resonated over time.
Within this field, marks surface and recede – graphite lines, oil stick gestures, and fragments of colour flicker in and out of visibility. These traces suggest movement and interruption, like signals passing through interference. Drips extend downward, grounding the composition while reinforcing a sense of duration and gravity.
Language is embedded within the work as a fragmented, reassembled structure – drawn from cut text and reconfigured intuitively. It appears as a dispersed poem:
Sound system into drawing
Numerous canvases
Central presentation
Different emotion
Salvaged from experience
Performance on listening
As the painting develops, the text resists stability. Words begin to blur, overlap, and dissolve into asemic gesture – becoming rhythm rather than statement, frequency rather than language. The surface carries the residue of these transformations, where meaning is held but never fixed.
Held Frequency exists in this suspended state – a space where sound becomes mark, language becomes movement, and the act of listening is translated into painting.

Materials used:

Acrylic, graphite, oil sticks, pastels

Details:

• Acrylic painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 60 x 60cm (unframed)
• Ready to hang
• Signed on the back
• Style: Organic
• Subject: Abstract and non-figurative