The Wait II by Raquel Reis
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Watercolor pencil
Dimensions: 23 x 30 cm
Year: 2021
Price: $400.00 USD
Status: available
“The Wait II” grew from my fascination with the quiet spaces between one moment and the next. Waiting can feel uncertain, even uncomfortable, but it can also become a private refuge, a pause in which we hear ourselves more clearly. I wanted this figure to inhabit that suspended time with calmness rather than urgency. Her inward gaze and gently fragmented features suggest thoughts unfolding beneath a composed surface. I used watercolor and watercolor pencil to move between softness and definition, allowing pigments to dissolve in some places and sharpen in others, much like attention drifting between memory and the present. The vivid reds and blues carry an undercurrent of emotional energy, while the luminous yellow face creates a sense of warmth and inner awareness. The purple forms gathered near her heart feel like thoughts, blossoms, or unspoken feelings held close. Through the balanced composition and expressionist distortions, I invite time to slow. I hope this work offers viewers permission to remain in the unresolved moment, to discover that stillness is not emptiness, but a place where something tender may be forming.
Why collect this work?
A radically rearranged face turns waiting into divided attention: the figure appears composed at the table while eyes, profiles, and contours pull perception in competing directions.
- Reis describes her figurative practice as emotional translation rather than portraiture. Here, that aim is legible in a face constructed from overlapping viewpoints rather than consistent anatomy.
- In the photograph, enlarged eyes look in different directions, red hair forms an angular frame, and folded yellow hands anchor the lower edge. The purple shapes at the collar interrupt the passage between head and patterned clothing, leaving their identity open.
- The catalogued watercolor pencil supports both broad, visibly graded passages and emphatic linear boundaries. That alternation lets facial elements partially merge while remaining sharply segmented.
- Encountered as a study of suspended time, The Wait II complicates stillness without depicting action: repetition, misalignment, and the compressed tabletop make waiting appear mentally active rather than empty.
About the Artist
Raquel Reis
Raquel Reis is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Madrid, ES.
Nationality: Brazilian
My work is rooted in sensation, perception, and gesture.
