Sonia J. - "Fire Leaf" - "Spring 2025" Series - XXL

Fireleaf
Artist: Sonia J. (1971, Portugal)
Collection: Spring 2025 Series
Technique: Oil and mixed media on canvas (textured with gesso, sand, and modeling paste)
Dimensions: 157 × 93 cm (XXL format)
Year: 2025
Condition: New – directly from the artist’s studio
Signature: Hand-signed on the back.
Certificate: Includes a signed Certificate of Authenticity.
Shipping: Rolled in a strong protective tube (tracked + insured)


Description of the Artwork:

Fireleaf — part of the Spring 2025 Series — is an exploration of nature’s silent alchemy, where heat, growth, and renewal converge. Built through layered textures of oil, gesso, sand, and modeling paste, the work evokes the sensation of a leaf illuminated from within, as if carrying the warm ember of transformation at its core.

Organic forms merge with subtle golden undertones, balancing fragility and resilience. The deep relief of the surface enhances movement and light, inviting the viewer into a contemplative space where nature’s cycles unfold in quiet power.

Rich, elemental, and gracefully intense, this XXL piece becomes a sophisticated focal point in contemporary interiors. Its warm palette harmonizes beautifully with natural woods, soft neutrals, minimalist spaces, and refined architecture. Ideal for living rooms, entrance halls, serene bedroom environments, or boutique hotels, 'Fireleaf' brings grounded elegance—a subtle yet striking statement of renewal and organic beauty.


About the artist — Sonia J. (Portugal, 1971):

From boardrooms to canvas...
From business insight to raw nature...
From strategy to a vision beyond the canvas...
Women empowerment through art...

I live between two worlds — the one I built through precision, and the one I reclaimed through emotion. 'Dual Hirathe' is where they meet.

I spent three decades within a world defined by clarity, speed, and control. Every decision was measured. Every minute accounted for. Every goal, a line on a strategy map. It was a life built on precision — analyzing, exhilarating, demanding, and, at times, consuming. For years, I believed that leadership meant carrying weight with grace, never hesitating, never slowing down. I was surrounded by people who thrived on ambition and logic, and I learned to excel within that structure. But somewhere between the constant motion and the polished meetings, I began to lose the sound of my own voice. When I finally paused (Mid-2024) — truly paused — what I heard was silence. Not emptiness, but a silence full of potential. The kind that invites something new to emerge. That was the beginning of my metamorphosis.

My work is born from a dialogue between worlds — between the rational and the intuitive, the measured and the instinctive. It reflects the journey from business acumen to expressiveness, from a life of global strategy to a life shaped by texture, silence, and landscape. After three decades leading in the corporate sphere, I learned the language of structure — clarity, precision, purpose. It trained my eye to see systems, to recognize patterns, to balance complexity with simplicity. But when I turned to art, that language began to dissolve. In its place emerged another vocabulary — tactile, emotional, fluid — one that could only be spoken through pigment and sand, through the layered patience of a canvas evolving over time.

Leaving the corporate world wasn’t a single act of courage; it was a gradual surrender. At first, I tried to carry the same rules into my new life — goals, outcomes, performance indicators. But art refused to be managed. It demanded vulnerability. It required me to listen instead of direct. When I first touched a blank canvas, I didn’t know it would become my new language. I only knew that words had limits, and that emotions — the ones I had buried under efficiency and professionalism — were asking to breathe. Colours became my vocabulary. Texture became my syntax. Each layer of sand, gesso, and pigment spoke what I could not yet say aloud: that transformation is not about erasing who you were, but allowing all versions of yourself to coexist.

In leadership, I lived by masculine energy: decisive, analytical, outward-facing. In art, I encountered its counterpart — the feminine: receptive, intuitive, inwardly expansive.
Neither is superior; both are sacred. I discovered that creation happens precisely where these two meet. Too much structure and art becomes rigid. Too much flow and it dissolves into chaos. The same is true for life. Painting taught me balance. It reminded me that strength can exist in stillness, and that sensitivity is not weakness — it’s wisdom in another form. In many ways, my practice became a reconciliation of energies: the assertive and the yielding, the concrete and the ethereal, the logic that built my past and the intuition that defines my present.

I now live between two worlds: the cosmopolitan intensity of my past and the raw serenity of Serra da Estrela, the mountain landscape that now shapes my studio and my soul. From Lisbon’s concrete geometry to the natural erosion of rock and wind, my creative rhythm mirrors that transition — from acceleration to stillness, from performance to presence. Through textured abstraction, I translate these lived contrasts into visual form. My paintings are emotional topographies — layered surfaces where resilience, release, and quiet power coexist. They are not representations of places but states of being: inner landscapes shaped by movement, memory, and metamorphosis.

My work continually navigates dual tensions — between order and emotion, light and matter, memory and renewal, logic and intuition, leadership and creativity, control and surrender, past and rebirth, strategy and sensitivity, corporate precision and raw nature. These tensions are not contradictions but harmonies in flux. They are the friction that generates expression, the invisible pulse beneath every mark I make. Each canvas begins in dialogue with control — the part of me that still seeks structure, clarity, outcome. But as the process unfolds, control gives way to instinct. Even when chaos appears to dominate, my intention remains human — to mirror the emotional balance we all seek between strength and surrender, from organization and freedom.

I believe art is not a luxury; it’s a way back to ourselves. In a world that values output more than presence, art slows us down enough to feel again. For me, art is recovery — not of what was lost, but of what was forgotten. The softness, the sensuality, the unmeasured beauty of simply being. Through tactile abstraction, I create not to impress but to soothe, to ground, to restore. My work invites touch — not literal, but emotional. It asks viewers to linger, to breathe, to feel their own reflection in the silence of texture. I paint for spaces that need calm, and for women who have lived their lives carrying others, leading, achieving, performing. My art offers them refuge — a moment where they don’t need to prove, achieve, or explain. Each painting is a quiet act of rebellion against the noise of productivity. It is a reminder that stillness can be powerful, and that healing can happen in silence.

"Dual Hirathe" is more than a title; it is my artistic identity—a compass for everything I create. 'Hirathe' derives from hearth and heart, from warmth and origin, the intimate place where creation begins. 'Dual' represents the coexistence of opposites—the two worlds I inhabit: the structured, logical realm of leadership and the intuitive, sensorial world of art. Together, 'Dual Hirathe' signifies the heart in duality—the living intersection where mind and matter, order and emotion, masculine and feminine converge. It is the pulse behind my practice, the invisible architecture beneath every brushstroke, texture, and line. When collectors engage with my works, they are not merely acquiring an image—they are engaging with that living duality. The line becomes their mirror: a tension they can feel, a threshold they can cross, an invitation to inhabit the space between gravity and grace.

Each of my collections is a fragment of a larger conversation—a continuous narrative of transformation. They differ in tone, rhythm, and form, yet remain united by one underlying question: how do we reconcile structure with freedom?

After years of leading through logic, I now lead through feeling. What was once strategy has become sensibility—a shift from managing outcomes to shaping experiences, from guiding organizations to guiding emotion through form. My art bridges ART AND DESIGN, translating emotion into tangible presence. Each piece is more than an image; it is an environment—a living surface that interacts with space, light, and memory. They are authorships designed to live with people, not apart from them. Whether placed in a private home, a hotel, a corporate lobby, a gallery, or a museum, my paintings are conceived as part of the architecture of experience. They are meant to breathe, to hold, to heal—not to hang as decoration but to transform the atmosphere around them.


For me, art is not an object. It is an atmosphere, a PORTAL — a tactile, visual language of harmony and presence. It lives through vibration: colour, texture, silence, and light in dialogue with the space it inhabits. When someone stands before a painting, they are not observing something external; they are entering a field of resonance. A textured surface, a subtle line, a muted tone — these become invitations to slow down, to reconnect, to breathe differently. Each work carries the memory of human gesture — energy made visible.

In a corporate space, that energy softens rigidity. In a private home, it brings grounding and intimacy. In a wellness center or a hotel, it restores calm. In a gallery, it interacts with light and architecture, transforming contemplation into emotion. In a museum, it becomes dialogue — between past and present, between the viewer’s body and collective memory. In an exhibition, it gathers presence — a choreography of color, matter, and silence that connects strangers through shared stillness.

Wherever it exists, it creates presence — that invisible yet perceptible shift that makes a space feel alive, and 'presence is the new luxury.' - Sonia J.

From "Authority to Experience": The art world is changing.
For centuries, it operated through authority — museums, experts, collectors deciding what mattered. But today, in the 21st century, we are moving from an authority-based system to an experience-based one. Art is no longer confined to white walls or exclusive rooms; it’s expanding into the rhythm of everyday life. People want to live with art — to feel it, to inhabit it, to let it influence their environments and their emotions. And this is exactly what a platform like CATAWIKI does — helping people live with ART! And this is the reason I am here as well.

My paintings are created not just for galleries or exhibitions. Despite galleries remaining the most democratic spaces for art — places where we can meet creation in its purest form, experience it physically, and allow our senses, not systems, to define its value. My paintings are also for the spaces where real life unfolds — homes, wellness retreats, offices, hotels, museums that invite touch and interaction. They belong to an era where art integrates with design, architecture, and emotional well-being. To me, this is not dilution — it’s expansion. It’s art returning to its original purpose: to accompany human life, to mark sacred space, to create connection.

Great artists like Pollock, Mitchell, Bourgeois, Rembrandt, Van Gogh — and many others — never created their work with galleries or museums in mind. They painted out of necessity, from the inside out. Their canvases were instruments of survival — mirrors for the psyche, extensions of breath. Through their raw honesty, they invented new languages of expression; NOT TO IMPRESS, BUT TO EXIST. Many of them struggled deeply — with isolation, poverty, depression — some even losing the battle with their own inner chaos. And yet, their art endures because it speaks to the collective need for beauty, meaning, and emotional truth. They didn’t set out to make history; they set out to FEEL— and, in doing so, they allowed art itself to evolve. Once again, their legacy reminds us that art’s highest purpose is not prestige but PRESENCE! It was always meant to accompany human life — to witness joy and grief, to inhabit homes and hearts, to mark sacred spaces and shared moments.

Vision Beyond Canvas
So, in the 21st century, art’s purpose is not to wait fifty years for validation within museums or galleries — it is to live now — to exist in dialogue with our daily lives, to transform the environments we inhabit, and to awaken emotion in real time. Art today must breathe with us: in our homes, our workplaces, our retreats, our cities, our institutions, our societies, our planet, and our quiet corners. It must integrate into how we live, not remain distant as something to be visited. It must soften the architecture of modern life and reintroduce tenderness into our spaces. That is the vision I carry beyond the canvas — a belief that art’s value lies not only in what it represents, but in what it awakens. Just as those who came before painted to survive their inner storms, I paint to reconnect the fragmented parts of modern existence — to merge emotion with environment, logic with feeling, art with life. This is the new chapter of art’s evolution: not the separation of aesthetics from experience, but their reunion — where art once again becomes what it has always been at its essence: a human necessity.

In this vision, the artist becomes both creator and composer — shaping not only what is seen but also how it is felt. Every decision — from pigment to scale, from texture to placement — responds to the energy of a room and its inhabitants. I often think of my paintings as architectures of feeling. They anchor space like quiet companions, bringing rhythm where there is emptiness, calm where there is chaos. They do not impose meaning; they invite experience. When I collaborate with interior designers or curators, the dialogue extends beyond aesthetics. It becomes about how the work can enhance the emotional architecture of the space — how it can amplify light, balance energy, or provide contrast where stillness is needed. It is a fusion of sensitivity and strategy, a continuation of my previous life — but translated into creative form. This is the meeting of two intelligences: the rational precision of business strategy and the intuitive depth of artistic vision. It’s not a rejection of logic, but its transformation into empathy. Where I once designed frameworks for teams, I now design environments for emotion.

Living Environments
Ultimately, my work is an act of integration — merging the structural clarity of my corporate past with the organic fluidity of art. Each canvas is an ecosystem: colour, texture, gravity, and silence finding equilibrium. In a world that often fragments — separating mind from body, art from life, reason from emotion — I strive to reconnect what modern life has divided. That is what I mean by Art Integration: the reunion of aesthetic, human, and spatial experience. My paintings are not to be looked at — they are to be lived with. They are companions, anchors, thresholds of calm. They remind us that art can still hold meaning in a hyper-digital world — not through explanation, but through presence.

This is my vision beyond the canvas: to bring art back into daily life, to make spaces more human, and to replace the noise of authority with the intimacy of experience. My collections are not about representation but presence. They are not created just to decorate but to INHABIT — to craft atmospheres that ground and restore. They belong as naturally in a private space as in a public one, in a corporate environment as in a mountain home. My vision is to make art part of how we live, not just what we look at — to transform spaces into living environments where emotion and design merge, where art becomes an atmosphere of renewal. From business acumen to expressiveness, from cosmopolitan rhythm to mountain stillness — every painting I create carries both worlds within it, and there are bridges between logic and intuition, between the human desire for order and the soul’s need for freedom. Each canvas is a negotiation between these forces — and in that negotiation, my art itself finds its own voice.


Artistic Achievements & Exhibitions

Sonia J.'s growing international recognition includes:

• Portfolio Review — Charlotte Paritzky, Director of Z&B Gallery & Co-Founder of OBRA Art (May 2025)
Top 10 Berlin contemporary artists (2024–2025)
5th International Contemporary Art Fair, IT’S LIQUID Group — Barcelona, Spain (July 18–28, 2025)
• Artist of the Month — IT’S LIQUID Group (September 2025)
• Braga Contemporary Art Exhibition — Braga, Portugal (September 12–14, 2025)
• Portfolio Review — Quentin Métayer, PR & Communication, Perrotin (October 2025)
• Portfolio Review — Flavio Scaloni, Gallery Manager, Galerie Lo Scalo (October 2025)
Therapeutical Healthcare Center Project — commissioned full collection for a healthcare space in Portugal.
Legal Notary Office Art Project — commissioned full collection inspired by the Blues Collection
• SensesART, IT’S LIQUID Group — Lecce, Italy (December 2025)
European Artist Award 2025 — IT’S LIQUID Group, Venice, Italy (December 5, 2025)
Verona SPA Art Project — commissioned full collection for a hotel spa in Verona, inspired by Mediterranean textures.
• Featured artist on Singulart, Artmajeur, and listed on Artprice.com
• AKOUN Valuation (June 2025) — Officially certified at €550 for format 15P (65 × 50 cm)

Packaging & Shipping

The artwork will be sent rolled inside a strong protective tube, wrapped with acid-free paper and multiple layers of reinforcement to ensure total safety and significantly reduced shipping costs.
Shipping includes tracking number and insurance.

Estimated Delivery
EU: 3–7 days
• Non-EU: 7–15 days (subject to customs)