Goa Sunshine

Artist: Anurag Anand
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 48 × 36 inches (121.92 × 91.44 cm)
Year: 2025

Rendered with bold vitality and rhythmic tension, this vibrant abstract painting captures the emotional pulse of an imagined cityscape. The composition is a striking interplay of color, form, and spatial compression, evoking a world that is both whimsical and deeply expressive. Here, architecture, nature, and movement converge in a tableau that distills urban life into symbolic fragments, layered with nuance and energy.

Clusters of buildings, angular and overlapping, form the heart of the painting. The palette is dominated by rich ochres, deep reds, and muted blues, lending the structures both solidity and warmth. These simplified forms, rendered with uneven lines and childlike geometry, transcend mere representation to become carriers of mood and memory. The result is a city that feels familiar, yet abstracted, a psychological map as much as a physical space.

A bright yellow sun radiates from the upper right quadrant, casting a symbolic warmth that animates the surrounding forms. Its intensity is mirrored by a flying pale-yellow bird, whose trajectory across the sky adds a moment of dynamism and visual release. In the foreground, a single stylized tree anchors the organic within the architectural, introducing a note of contemplation amid the chaotic clustering of built forms. The earthy, muted brown and dark grey background provides a contrasting ground for the vibrancy of the structures. This tonal counterbalance gives depth and spatial resonance to the otherwise flat pictorial plane. A small, indistinct animal or figure, located near the bottom left, acts as a subtle point of intrigue its presence enhancing the painting’s narrative ambiguity.

Executed with expressive, thick brushstrokes, the surface of the canvas pulses with texture and gestural confidence. The application of paint is tactile and spontaneous, reinforcing the emotional immediacy of the work. Though the visual language flirts with the innocence of childlike renderings, the painter’s mature control of composition and color belies a deeper, more reflective engagement with the urban condition. This work resonates as both a celebration and critique of city life, vivid, dense, at times overwhelming, but also teeming with the possibility of connection, light, and beauty. It is an artwork that beckons the viewer to look beyond the surface and into the living rhythms of a world imagined with both wonder and discernment.