The window series — 6 x 10 in — Lisbon Studio

A bright town rises beyond two figures in a dark interior. Pink, ochre, and blue give the architecture its rhythm, while black holds the room together. The view is not quite outside; the figures are not entirely separate from it.

The architectural motifs come from churches in Estoril, Portugal. Here, abstract figuration meets the impulse of plein-air painting: the wish to carry a place seen in the world into the more private geography of a canvas.

I return to the expressive black I admire in Matisse, not as an absence of color but as something that lets the brighter passages speak. The room and the town occupy the same surface. The window becomes their meeting place rather than a firm boundary between them.

About the artist
Satish Prabhu brings travel, reading, and everyday encounters into a practice of reconstruction. Figures, interiors, and familiar objects become ways to explore memory, belonging, and the distance between people. This is an original, artist-created work, not an AI-generated image.

Dimensions: 6 x 10 in
Location: Lisbon Studio

Related paintings
All the dreams in the world: another meeting of interior life and Portuguese surroundings

From the journal
On looking beyond the visitor’s view: Lisbon in June
On sketches, Lisbon, and the life beneath a painting: All the Dreams of the World