AFTER THE DESERT

When I finally stepped out of the desert, I wasn’t the same person who had entered it. The heat, the silence, and the vastness had stripped me down to something raw and essential. There, beneath the weight of 50-degree sun and endless dunes, I had faced myself without distraction, without noise, without escape.

I still remember my very first night there. Everything happened so quickly - too quickly for my body to keep up. I landed at midnight, thinking I would go straight into the city. Instead, I was picked up from the airport and driven for two hours into the desert. By the time I found myself standing on the dunes, under the vast sky, my body had so much to process that I couldn’t fall asleep. Every sense was on edge. I kept hearing a strange sound in the darkness, and my mind instantly panicked: Is that a hyena? But wait… are there even hyenas in the desert? The thought spiraled: Is this the way I’m going to go? Is this the end? And then - acceptance: Alright… there’s nothing else to do but surrender.

All of that happened in the span of seconds, minutes. And then, almost comically, it turned out to be just a bird. I laughed to myself in the dark. My very first close moment with the desert was both terrifying and humbling - and it set the tone for everything that followed.

It wasn’t easy. At times, the silence was so heavy it felt like my ears were sealed shut, and the sun pressed against me until I thought I might break. But somewhere in that stillness, something shifted. I realized that what I thought would destroy me was quietly reshaping me. The desert wasn’t just testing my endurance - it was teaching me to listen, to trust, and to transform.

“After the Desert” carries that memory. The faint imprint of a hand in the golden texture is my reminder that I was there - that I touched the desert, and it touched me back. To me, it symbolizes the moment of return: when you leave a place like that, you can never return as the same person. You carry the desert with you - in your strength, in your silence, in the new self that emerges after the storm of heat and stillness has passed.

This piece is about survival, yes, but more than that - it is about rebirth. It’s about the quiet transformation that happens when you step into the most unforgiving place and walk out carrying something softer, stronger, and truer within yourself.

MEDIUM: 24K Gold and acrylic on canvas

SIZE: 120 × 80 cm

YEAR: 2025

CREATED BY Gerda Carina and Elisabet Lääne