“What Survived” 32×40” (2026) Original Mixed-media Painting by Fatima Rezqi

What Survived is the first painting I made after moving to Cambridge, after six months away from painting. I had left Edinburgh, a place that had become a second home, full of memories and versions of myself and I was carrying quiet grief alongside the excitement of beginning again.

When I finally picked up a brush, I was processing the move in colours I couldn't yet put into words. The reds and oranges are restless and alive, carrying the intensity of being in transition. The yellows bring a different kind of light, warmth, possibility, the beginning of new growth. The greens at the bottom feel like the first signs of putting down new roots.

The colours overlap and fight with each other because that's how that period felt. I wasn't leaving one life and beginning another; both were existing inside me at the same time. They don't tell a neat story. They resist easy answers.

I called it What Survived because I was learning that moving forward doesn't mean leaving everything behind. Memories survive. Love survives. Parts of who we were survive. This painting became a record of that moment, not quite the person I had been, not yet the person I would become, somewhere in between and learning to grow into a new life without erasing the old one.

Perhaps what survived most of all was the ability to begin again.

Materials used:

Acrylic and Oil Pastels

Details:

• Mixed-media painting on Canvas
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 81.3 x 101.6cm
• Ready to hang
• Signed on the back
• Style: Expressive and gestural
• Subject: Abstract and non-figurative