Lumen | Gold Award, Shades of Blue 2026 | Camelback Gallery | Annita Apostolidou Platis
Gold Award — Shades of Blue 2026 Art Awards
The series The Luminous Abyss is a visual journey through the interplay of light and shadow. A meditation on the emotional dualities we carry within us: visibility and secrecy, strength and softness, memory and transformation. Each work in the series invites the viewer to pause before the unseen, to recognize that even in darkness, light is never truly lost.
This body of work does not seek spectacle.
It seeks resonance.
Through layered symbolism, controlled palettes, and intentional stillness, the series unfolds slowly, allowing meaning to surface through texture, atmosphere, and emotional presence rather than overt narration. It is equally a meditation on process, where each image is shaped by intention, study, and the quiet labor of building visual language as a vessel for inner states.
Within this context, Lumen emerges as a quiet meditation on inner illumination.
A frosty female figure stands suspended between shadow and glow, her presence both ethereal and resolute. She inhabits a liminal space — neither fully revealed nor hidden — embodying the delicate balance between vulnerability and strength. Her stillness is not passive; it is attentive, charged with awareness.
Golden lanterns descend like guiding stars, releasing warmth into the cool blue atmosphere. They do not dominate the scene, but gently punctuate it, symbols of guidance, memory, and the fragile persistence of hope. Around her, dark feathers drift through the space, evoking protection, remembrance, and unseen flight, traces of what has passed and what continues quietly beneath the surface.
From the textured darkness emerge magnolia and hydrangea blossoms. These flowers speak of purity, emotional depth, and fragile resilience. Their pale petals echo the figure’s porcelain stillness, forming a silent dialogue between softness and endurance, stillness and becoming. Nature here is not decorative; it is symbolic. A language of emotional states rendered through form.
In Lumen, light is not loud.
It does not conquer the darkness.
It coexists with it.
Illumination is intimate. A presence felt rather than declared, revealing beauty within stillness and hope within the unseen. Blue, as the dominant chromatic field, becomes both emotional terrain and structural force: a color associated with introspection, depth, and quiet endurance.
Lumen was awarded the Gold Award in the Shades of Blue 2026 Art Awards, an international juried virtual exhibition organized by Camelback Gallery. The jurors selected works based on theme, quality of work, composition, value, color, technique, depth, and overall impact. The exhibition brings together 116 award-winning artists from 13 countries, each interpreting blue as both color and concept.
I extend my sincere thanks to the jurors Kathy Paulus, Jan Lowe, and Kassandra Kaye for their thoughtful consideration and for recognizing the quiet strength and symbolic depth of this work. I am also grateful to Camelback Gallery for creating a platform that honors emotional nuance, artistic rigor, and meaningful contemporary dialogue.
View the Shades of Blue 2026 Exhibition
Annita Apostolidou Platis
Visual Artist · Exhibition Essayist · Curator · Fashion & Jewelry Designer · Interior Designer · Poet & Writer
© 2026 Annita Apostolidou Platis. All rights reserved.