Strawberry Mountain

There is a place Eva Belishova has always known — not on any map, but somewhere between memory and imagination, between the Albanian mountains of her childhood and the dreamscapes she began painting after finding freedom. In this work, a great solitary peak rises into a blush-pink sky, its presence ancient and otherworldly, while rolling teal valleys unfurl below and a still blue pond catches the last of the light. It is a landscape that feels both utterly real and completely impossible. And then: the strawberries. Enormous, jewel-red, dewy with detail, they sit in the foreground as though they have always belonged there — as though in this world, fruit grows to match the scale of mountains. It is a surrealist gesture that feels entirely natural within Eva's vision, a reminder that her paintings are not records of places seen but of places felt. Each of the thousands of tiny oil droplets that make up this image was placed by hand, one tap of a brush handle at a time, the image emerging slowly over months like a world condensed from mist. For Eva, who grew up under a dictatorship where artists were silenced, painting has always been an act of freedom. This canvas carries that freedom in every mark — a surreal paradise where mountains and wild fruit coexist, and where the act of seeing slowly is its own reward.