Beneath

Painting myself as a sea creature is a return to my younger self – a girl who would channel her inner anguish into darkly-beautiful scenes of strange hybrid-like creatures. This work was created after the most recent of a series of life-changing events, including the passing of my father.

This is one of several recent works exploring both my inner and outer worlds – my concern for the greater human collective through emotions and symbols rooted in my own childhood. Water is symbolic of deep emotion, and even according to my astrological sign of Pisces, I can have a tendency to feel as though I am thriving and drowning in it all at once.

In this piece we see a part-human creature of the sea rising from the dark depths of the water, gasping at the surface for a breath of air. The cool blue tones beneath the surface shimmer in stark contrast to the bright, warm light of the world above. Unsure of where she belongs, she resides somewhere between the two worlds. A living contradiction – the creature exists in a place in which she cannot fully survive.

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Natasha Zraikat is a multi award-winning magical realism artist. She was born in the USA to Jordanian-Palestinian and Russian-Ukrainian parents, soon after migrating to Australia with her family as a child.

Natasha is fascinated with the seen and unseen worlds and how the two interconnect. Her current body of work describes her own journey of spiritual growth and awakening. This has been one of the most difficult yet rewarding experiences of her life so far, and she felt called on a soul level to pour this experience into her work and to share it with complete honesty.

‘To me, art is a portal to unseen worlds – an expression of the divine essence within each of us’ she explains. ‘The universe is indeed within us, and what we cultivate within is reflected without – in our physical reality. As our world shifts, both on Earth and in the heavens, many of us can perceive a pulling back of the ‘veil’ of the physical world as we know it.’ says Natasha.

In 2025, Natasha recently appeared as a contestant on Portrait Artist of the Year Australia, now showing on ABC TV Australia and also won the 2025 Dean Cogle Portrait Prize. She also won First Prize in the City-Wide Art VIII Competition in Florence, Italy. Her work has been collected and exhibited across Australia, the USA and Europe, and has been featured in multiple publications including Beautiful Bizarre magazine.