Triton Octopus 1953

"Triton Octopus," by Princess Fahrelnissa Zeid, is a large abstract painting made with oil on canvas. This piece seems to have emerged from a kind of intuitive puzzle-solving. I imagine her layering these shapes, adjusting them, seeing how they fit together, almost like a mosaic. It's easy to get lost in the details of Zeid's painting, but the colour pulls me in different directions, from a warm, almost volcanic red on the right side to a cooler, more contemplative yellow and black palette on the left. I think Zeid might have been channeling a sense of the infinite, maybe thinking about how the tiniest fragment can contain a whole world. In some ways, she reminds me of Hilma af Klint, who was also reaching for something beyond the visible world through abstraction, but also Sonia Delaunay in her exploration of Orphism. There's something about the density and complexity of the composition that feels both overwhelming and strangely comforting. It's like she's inviting us to dive into the deep end of her mind. Artists are always talking to each other across time and space, you know, and Zeid's work is a reminder that painting is an ongoing conversation.