 “Lips of Light”
Mixed media on canvas, 28” x 22” I rolled tiny paper prayers and tucked them into the open lips of the painting. They ended up looking like cigarettes. Painting as altar. Painting as prayer.  New pieces delivered to Gallery MAR.
Lucky to be among the hands and hearts that keep this place alive - gentle, persistent, present. Shop Available Works https://www.gallerymar.com/artists/samantha-da-silva  For over a decade, I’ve carried the quiet ache of rheumatoid arthritis in silence. Not because my pain is special—it isn’t. Pain is simply human, ordinary, inevitable.
Yet in choosing to meet it with as much grace as I can muster, something shifts: I become peace amid the earthquake. I stay present, gentle, unafraid to see the cracks. Because the cracks are not flaws to hide. They are openings. The wound is the place where the light enters you. (As Rumi reminds us, and as Leonard Cohen sang: there is a crack in everything—that’s how the light gets in.) These fractures in body and spirit have taught me more than wholeness ever could. They’ve cracked me open to deeper creativity, to truer connection, to the quiet bravery of simply being here. In my “Cracks” series, I honor those fissures—not as endings, but as invitations. Light pours through the breaks we once wished away. Healing doesn’t erase the scar; it illuminates it. If you’re carrying your own unseen pain today, know this: You don’t have to perform perfection. Your cracks are sacred. They are how the light reaches the world through you. Be gentle with yourself. Stay with it. Let the light in.  Delivered a fresh new piece to Gallery MAR today. Spring is in the air, and the energy in the gallery feels alive. I feel lucky to be included among the dynamic artists and dedicated staff who make this place so special.
(You wouldn’t know it from these photos—my eyes are closed again. It always takes a few tries to get one with them open.) Shop Gallery Mar  Layers of blue, white, and metallic building upward.
Personal, atmospheric. A quiet bridge between the outside world and the one within. Inner Bloom , Mixed Media on Canvas, 48” x 30”  This weather has me inspired.
Loving how this piece came together.
The play of light and darkness always reminds me: one doesn’t stir without the other. Both are holy.
Both Are Holy, 2026 Mixed media (iron-rich Utah sand, sand, local newspaper, plaster, acrylic on canvas), 60” x 36” Sculptural Layers that remember where they came from.  One beam. A few small works. My shadow joining the conversation. Studio alchemy, caught in February light.
 Shadow Play
Painting in progress. When I create deliberate openings in a canvas — burned, punched, drilled, cut, or torn — I see it as the painting learning how to breathe. Practical texture meets metaphor: Air moves through the wound. Something heavy is finally released. Breakthrough or breath — either way, the canvas grows lungs.  Worthy of Earth, 2026, Mixed Media (newspaper, plaster, paint, red Utah sand, salt, sawdust) on canvas, 60” x 48”
A slot canyon is a narrow, sheer-walled drainage carved through sandstone or sedimentary rock, often squeezing to a mere sliver. Utah holds the world’s highest concentration of these geological wonders—silent, intimate, and sculpted by time. This painting began as an homage to such canyons but quickly became something more feminine and erotic, the narrow passages and shadowed depths evoking the body’s hidden corridors, desire, and surrender. I remain mesmerized by the transformation. Created at the dawn of the Chinese Year of the Fire Horse, Worthy of Earth channels passion, raw energy, and decisive action. Layers of local red Utah sand, salt, sawdust, newspaper, plaster, and paint build a textured, topographic surface that is both landscape and intimate terrain—grounding the ephemeral in place while affirming worthiness through embodied reclamation. This piece bridges nature’s erosive beauty with personal and spiritual intensity, inviting viewers to navigate their own depths and emerge affirmed. |
