I began this piece after learning about the short lives of butterflies. Their beauty felt inseparable from their brevity, and that became a way to think about moments we inhabit only halfway. The girl is sitting beside the ocean, but her figure begins to disperse into small fragments, as though her thoughts are carrying her away from the place where she is.
The butterflies echo that gradual disappearance. Together, they suggest how a moment can pass while our attention is elsewhere, leaving us with only a partial memory of being there. I incorporated traditional Kazakh ornaments into the patterns on her clothing, bringing something of my own background into this imagined scene. I wanted the painting to hold a familiar feeling: being surrounded by something beautiful and still finding it difficult to stay present long enough to experience it.