Where I Was Hidden is a series of oil paintings about quietly coming back to yourself. Not with big answers or loud change but with slow, honest moments that shift something deep inside. The title is taken from a Hadith: “I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known…” That line stayed with me. It made me wonder, what if what we’re searching for has always been inside us, quietly waiting?

Each painting shows a figure wrapped in white organza. The figure is in a trance neither fully still nor in motion. It exists in that in-between space, like a deep breath, or a truth that hasn’t yet been spoken. That’s the feeling I connect with Wajd, a Sufi state of being deeply present where you’re not lost, but not fully found either.

The fabric feels like memory, protection, softness, and slow unraveling. Around the figure, flowers bloom and fade. They mark inner seasons that represent times of becoming, resting, shedding, and returning.

This work is gently influenced by Sufi ideas about longing, love, and the journey of the soul but it isn’t limited to any one belief. It’s about moments we all move through: grief, healing, stillness, transformation.

Where I Was Hidden doesn’t try to explain. It simply holds space for whatever needs to surface. For what we forget. For what we carry. For what’s quietly unfolding inside us, even when we don’t have the words yet.