Time of Peonies, oil on canvas, 2021

It’s been one of those mornings, when light is bright and garden is still calm, like enveloped in the mist of the night just passed and the blossoms of colorful flowers appear after the dark of the night to celebrate the day. Complete solitude is needed to enter the code of color world, walking down the garden feels like entering trough portals of eternal beauty. Picking flowers for a bouquet is a meditative task and as I’ve been picking the first peonies of the season I’ve remembered how happy I’ve been planting these pale pink peonies and how long have I waited before thy started to blossom. Their sweet scent of early summer each June gives me joy and makes me want to paint them in all their gorgeous beauty, so fragile and short lived, but year after year appearing in the corner of the garden, near a small Japanese maple.