Acrylic, charcoal, pencil on cotton canvas
170 x 170 cm
About the artwork:
We sit on the same bench.
Lives poured into a cup,
debated on a side table.
I seem to be here
my cup still full,
a small brown lake
no one drinks from.
Sunlight lands on my shoulder
Warm, polite as if, too, sorry to intrude
I sit in the hush they leave behind
I listen how the quiet keeps my secret
That I am here
and not here
both at once.
Untouched. Unseen.
We belong to the invisible.
About the artist:
Sandra is a French-Australian illustrator, author and emerging painter based in Perth, Western Australia. She holds a Masters in Art (Illustration) and bring years of experience illustrating and publishing children’s picture books—including a Kate Greenaway Medal nomination—into her current practice. In her large-scale figurative paintings, she weaves the delicate, searching lines of her sketchbooks with bold form, working primarily in acrylic, charcoal, and pencil. These works explore our universal search for belonging and the quiet contradictions we all navigate: the exhaustion of chasing external validation, and the subtle unease of feeling invisible or adrift in a crowded world.
Often, we glimpse fragments of belonging in life’s smaller moments — the everyday anchors, the shared warmth, and the simple acts of presence. Sandra's paintings invite the viewer to sit gently with their own lost threads, falls, and rebirths, and to discover that while connection with others offers beautiful reflections of belonging, true belonging is something we ultimately forge from within.