2026, SEPTEMBER The Scent of Salt, and the Coming Rain — A Visual Diary In September we spent a few days on Fulhadhoo, in Baa Atoll, Maldives. A place where you can hear the sea from every side, in a small atoll of its own, separated from the rest of Baa by a channel of open water. Very little land, and a great deal of lagoon and sky.
Motherhood, and the current state of the world changes what you notice. Ordinary moments become more important because someone small is learning from them. Having lived away for many years and returning, I no longer take home for granted. And in a world that becomes more complicated each day, staying whole has started to feel less like a feeling and more like an intentional practice. There is a darkness to the sea before the rains. We know this because we have been here long enough. I often wonder what my son will remember: the sand that followed us indoors, sea water at his feet, his father’s shoulders, the lush wet green after rain. Part of his inheritance comes while I am still living beside him, in the small things that make a home inside you. The names of things. The old sea stories we keep retelling. The islands we will return to. The taste of something cooked the way we cook it. I have learned that it is possible to leave a place without leaving it behind. Freedom is not the same as being lost. You can explore, love what you find and let it change you, and still remember where you first learned to be.
Raniya M. These photographs have become the starting point for a new work exploring the sensory and emotional language of island life.
Sketches from Fulhadhoo Island, Baa, 2026
baa No. 01 No. 02 No. 03 No. 04 Four small-format oil studies explore the relationship between sensory memory, place and emotional perception, drawing from time spent in Baa during September 2026. The atmosphere of the island during the monsoon, the warmth of sunlight between showers, and the lightness of days lived freely are expressed through intuitive, playful arrangements of colour, texture and form. View painting > View painting > View painting > View painting >
the scent of salt & the coming rain The Scent of Salt and the Coming Rain is a large-format abstract oil painting in progress, and key piece in a developing body of work exploring themes of home, belonging, memory, and inheritance. Drawing from island life and the sensory language of weather, the work considers how place becomes internal; the idea of home as something carried rather than fixed, and the forms of inheritance we receive simply from living beside one another.