Literature

A painting full of light, colour, and closeness. But look longer: there is no obvious narrative. Just presence.

These people might be friends, or strangers sharing a moment. Each face holds its own interior world, yet there is harmony in their arrangement. It's a portrait of companionship without performance, the kind we recognise from trains, cafes, waiting rooms. Lives brushing gently against one another.There is a quiet kind of friendship here, not necessarily forged through shared history or spoken allegiance, but through a subtle attunement. The way bodies lean, the space held between them, the absence of drama.

As Elena Ferrante wrote,"Only in friendship do I know how to feel that I am not alone."That sort of friendship; ambient and barely declared carries its own depth. It doesn't demand attention. It exists, as this painting does, in the delicate poise between individuals who, whether for a moment or a lifetime, belong beside one another.