BLOOMING

BLOOMING 

2026

Oil on canvas 

100 x 80 cm 

Signed: Malin Sahlén 

BLOOMING is a work about the blooming of the heart.

In this painting, I wanted to portray what happens when we dare to open ourselves to our inner life. When emotions, memories, longing, vulnerability and life force are allowed to move through us and take form. The work carries a feeling of expansion, as if something that has lived within us for a long time is finally allowed to grow outward.

At the centre of the painting, I see Source, the soul, the origin. The luminous point where everything begins and where the life within us connects with something greater. The red forms surrounding the centre represent, to me, the heart and everything that moves around it. Love, intensity, memories, movement, tenderness and the many emotions we carry through life.

Above, the sky opens like a space for these emotions and states of being. An inner landscape where everything is allowed to exist. The soft, the strong, the vulnerable, the alive. The vertical lines stretching from above and downward feel to me like an etheric contact, a connection between the earthly and something greater. As if light, energy and presence are allowed to move through the work and meet the human.

When we dare to be in our heart and embrace all these emotions and states of being, something begins to bloom from the soul. The white flowers appear as symbols of this inner blooming. They do not emerge despite the emotions, but through them. As an expression of life force, openness and trust. A reminder that the beauty within us is often born when we allow ourselves to feel fully.

Below the sky, a horizon appears with strong, stable mountains. To me, they symbolise what carries and holds us, the foundation that remains steady through the shifts of life. In front of the mountains lies the still water, where the colours and movements of the sky are reflected. There, the life above is mirrored, as a reminder of how the inner and outer world are constantly reflecting one another.

BLOOMING invites the viewer to pause and feel the beauty of inner growth. A reminder that our emotions are not something we need to hide, but a place where transformation can begin. Where the heart is allowed to open. Where the soul is allowed to speak. Where something soft, true and luminous can bloom from within.