Waiting on the Other Side
Laura Bernardeschi Nelson, 2026
Oil pastel on paper, framed
45 × 35 cm
Signed and varnished
This work presents an ambiguous interior space that oscillates between architecture and emotion. A corridor-like structure unfolds through repeating arches and windowed openings, establishing a sense of rhythm and containment while resisting a stable or fully legible perspective. The space appears neither entirely real nor entirely imagined, functioning instead as a psychological environment.
Beyond the openings, saturated pink and red tones suggest an external presence or horizon that presses against the interior calm of cooler greens, blues, and violets. These contrasting palettes create a tension between inside and outside, enclosure and exposure. Emerging from within the structure are soft, organic forms—suggestive but unresolved—that seem to reach, drift, or hover. Their indistinct nature blurs the boundary between figure and space, implying presence without fixed identity.
The tactile qualities of oil pastel—its smudging, layering, and erosion of edges—are integral to the work’s meaning. Gestural marks and softened contours reinforce themes of transition, vulnerability, and suspension, as if the image itself is in a state of becoming.
Waiting on the Other Side evokes a moment of anticipation and emotional pause. It invites the viewer to inhabit a threshold where movement is implied but deferred, and where meaning remains open, provisional, and quietly charged.
Laura Bernardeschi Nelson artworld and travels 