The blue beatch Benidorm (2025) Original Oil Painting by Victoria Udalova

Blue Beach

This work is part of my Vamos a la Playa series, a research project exploring how contemporary tourism changes our perception of space, time, and human relationships.

The beach is one of the few public spaces where familiar social distinctions temporarily lose their significance. Wealth, profession, nationality, age, and social status become almost invisible beneath swimsuits, towels, and beach umbrellas. For a brief moment, everyone shares the same strip of sand, under the same sun and by the same sea.

Yet this equality is paradoxical. The contemporary beach becomes what anthropologist Marc Augé called a “non-place”—a space of temporary presence, constant movement, and anonymous coexistence. Thousands of people are together, yet they do not belong to this place.

Seen from above, the boundaries between individual bodies dissolve into a shared rhythm as colour and movement merge together. Bright umbrellas punctuate the composition with vivid bursts of colour, emphasizing the diversity of the people below.

This painting is not so much a depiction of a particular beach in Benidorm as a reflection on contemporary mass tourism—a world where people briefly meet, share the same space, and then disappear again, leaving behind only a trace of their presence.

In this work, I used a palette knife, bright flashes of neon acrylic paint, and multiple layers of glazing to bring this kaleidoscope of colourful bodies together into a unified visual harmony.

Materials used:

acrylic, oil on canvas

Details:

• Oil painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 65 x 46 x 2cm (unframed)
• Ready to hang
• Signed certificate of authenticity
• Style: Impressionistic
• Subject: Landscapes, sea and sky