The Story Behind Whispering Silence

How a longing for one quiet moment became an eight-chapter collection about presence, perspective and acceptance.

There was a point in my life when I realised I was constantly doing something.

I had left my 17-year career in IT to build a life around art. I knew I wanted this new chapter. I knew I had made the decision for a reason.

But then came the part nobody really prepares you for — waiting for the new life to actually begin.

Every day became a hustle.

Meeting after meeting.

Networking.

Reaching out.

Following up.

Figuring things out on my own.

Trying to understand how to build a career I had never built before, while simultaneously being a mother, an artist, and a woman who had made a complete career change.

There was always something to do.

And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, I remember a very simple thought emerging:

Can I just have a moment of peace?

Not as a mother.

Not as an artist trying to make a career work.

Not as someone constantly figuring out what comes next.

Not as someone who needed to be productive or make something happen.

Just me.

A woman who wanted a moment where she didn't have to do anything.

That question became the beginning of Whispering Silence.

The moment everything became clearer

The first painting in the collection, In the Moment, took me back to a very specific memory.

During a trip to Lakshadweep, I would wake up very early and go sit on a swing by the beach.

There was nobody around.

Just me, the swing, and an endless stretch of water in front of me.

I could hear the waves. Occasionally, I could hear birds.

And apart from that, there was nothing.

No meetings.

No notifications.

No expectations.

No one asking anything of me.

Just silence.

I remember how different that feeling was.

And I think that was when the idea behind Whispering Silence became much stronger for me.

I didn't want to make small paintings that simply depicted beautiful places.

I wanted to capture vastness.

I wanted the viewer to feel that same sense of space I had experienced — the feeling of being small within something enormous, while somehow feeling completely present.

So I began with studies.

A lot of them.

I experimented, explored and tried to understand how I could translate that feeling into paintings.

And gradually, the collection began to reveal itself.

I didn't really choose all the subjects

This is probably one of the strangest parts of creating the collection.

When I say I didn't consciously choose all the subjects, I mean it.

The ideas simply kept arriving.

I would be working on one painting and suddenly think:

What if I did this?

Then another idea would appear.

And another.

I hadn't started with a plan to include an eagle.

I hadn't decided that an orca needed to be part of the collection.

The subjects emerged as I continued exploring what silence, perspective and presence meant to me.

At some point, I realised I needed to stop simply following individual ideas and bring the collection together as a body of work.

That's when I created a working document for the collection — mapping the feelings, number of artworks, sizes and the overall structure.

The plan wasn't fixed.

It kept changing as I painted.

But having that framework allowed the individual ideas to start becoming a cohesive story.

Eight paintings became eight chapters

Eventually, the collection became an eight-chapter journey.

Each painting began carrying a slightly different question.

What does it mean to simply be present?

What happens when we step away from the noise?

What happens when we change our perspective?

Can we allow ourselves to surrender without needing to know what happens next?

Can we remain curious about what lies beyond what we can see?

And ultimately:

Can we accept that life doesn't need to become perfect for us to experience peace?

The paintings became my way of exploring those questions.

Not answering them.

Exploring them.

The painting that asked the most of me

There is one piece in the collection that still feels particularly difficult for me.

Not necessarily because it was technically the strongest challenge.

But because it asked a lot emotionally.

I don't think every painting needs to be technically perfect to hold something meaningful.

Sometimes a painting can make you stop.

Sometimes it can make you uncomfortable.

Sometimes it can make you ask yourself a question you weren't expecting.

And that matters to me.

Because Whispering Silence was never meant to be a collection of paintings that simply look beautiful on a wall.

It came from a very real need inside me.

The need to stop.

To breathe.

To remember that I am more than the roles I carry every day.

What I hope happens when you stand in front of these paintings

This is probably the simplest thing I can say about the entire collection.

I want you to pause.

Maybe for a few seconds.

Maybe for a few minutes.

Maybe long enough to forget what you were doing before you walked into the room.

I don't need you to understand exactly what I was feeling when I painted each work.

I don't need you to see the same story I see.

I want the paintings to give you enough space to find your own moment inside them.

Because perhaps that's what silence really gives us.

Not an escape from life.

Just enough space to hear ourselves again.

And maybe, sometimes, that's all we need.

Whispering Silence

Eight paintings. Eight chapters. One unfolding journey.

A collection born from the question:

“Can I just have a moment of peace?”

And created in the hope that, when you stand in front of these paintings, you might find one of your own.

Explore Whispering Silence →

Kriti