Lunch time by Daniel Abera
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Acrylic , marker and collage on canvas
Dimensions: 160 x 90 cm
Year: 2026
Price: $3500.00 USD
Status: available
“Lunch Time” grew from my longing for those unhurried hours when a meal becomes more than food. It becomes a gathering place for memory, conversation, play, and quiet companionship. I imagined a table prepared in a lush garden, waiting for familiar voices to return, while small animals wander freely through the scene as if they belong to the celebration. I built this world through acrylic, marker, and collage, allowing each medium to carry a different rhythm. Deep blues and greens create a cool, sheltering atmosphere, while flashes of red, orange, and yellow bring the warmth and energy of shared life. The sweeping white tablecloth leads the eye through flowers, fruit, vessels, patterned chairs, and unexpected details. Layered textures and shifting perspectives reflect the way memories overlap: some moments remain vivid, while others soften or become wonderfully distorted over time. I hope this piece invites viewers to linger and discover their own story within it. For me, it is a reminder that beauty often lives in ordinary rituals: a table set with care, a garden alive around us, and the simple anticipation of being together.
Why collect this work?
A long white table cuts diagonally through a densely worked garden, turning a familiar meal setting into a field where objects, figures, animals, and foliage compete for attention.
- Abera describes his practice as exploring memory and collective experience through everyday settings. Here, that concern appears in the table’s mixture of recognizable social ritual and spatial distortion.
- In the photograph, oversized flowers occupy the centre while chairs tilt, paths narrow abruptly, and cats cross the foreground. These shifts prevent the garden from settling into a single, orderly viewpoint.
- The catalogue identifies acrylic, marker, and collage on canvas. Painted areas establish broad masses, dark linear marks articulate objects, and patterned passages interrupt visual continuity, making the scene read as assembled rather than optically unified.
- Encountering this work means tracing how hospitality is pictured without an active gathering: vessels and seats await use, yet scattered figures remain peripheral. That tension makes anticipation, rather than the meal itself, the central event.
About the Artist
Daniel Abera
Daniel Abera is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: Mixed media painting. Based in Addis ababa, ET.
Nationality: Ethiopian
My practice explores memory, identity, and collective experience through everyday environments and objects.
