Varaaz Arts — Blog
Eternal Flow: The Day I Painted Atoms as Gods
Gouache on paper · A3 · 2024 · Sold
Some paintings are planned. Eternal Flow was not — it arrived.
I had begun the way I always do: a blank sheet, a quiet room, and no plan beyond the first line. I drew a triangle at the centre and filled it with gold. It felt like laying a foundation stone — something steady to build on.
Then my hand began to move on its own. Lines crossed through the triangle, meeting, parting, meeting again. Rings formed around it. Lotus petals opened at the edges. I wasn't deciding anymore — I was following.
Three visitors
Somewhere in that flow, three forms kept coming to my mind: Neon, Krypton and Xenon.
I am an artist, not a scientist — but I have always been moved by these three elements. They are called the noble gases, and the name suits them. They are complete in themselves. Their outer ring of electrons is full, so they do not reach out, do not borrow, do not bond. They simply are — stable, untouched, self-contained.
As I sat with them, they stopped feeling like chemistry. They began to feel like gods.
Think of a temple. At the centre is the sanctum — still, powerful. Around it, devotees walk in circles, round and round, in pradakshina. When I looked at an atom, I saw the same thing: a glowing core at the centre, and electrons circling it endlessly, like devotees who never tire.
Three atoms. Three shrines. Three deities standing quietly side by side.
The structure revealed itself
So I gave them their own space. On the right side of the paper, on plain white, I painted Neon, Krypton and Xenon — one below the other, each a glowing core with its circles of devotion around it.
On the left, the mandala kept growing in its purple world.
Only when I stepped back did I understand what had happened. The two sides were telling the same story. The golden triangle with its rings, and the atom with its orbits — both are a still centre with energy flowing around it, forever.
The temple, the atom, the mandala — one law.
Why "Eternal Flow"
Nothing in this painting rests. Lines flow through the triangle. Petals flow outward. Electrons circle without end. And yet the whole painting feels calm.
That is the lesson the painting taught me: peace is not stillness. It is movement around a steady centre.
For those who collect meaning
Eternal Flow now lives in a private collection. I often think of it there — its three small gods keeping their quiet circles on someone's wall.
This is what I hope every piece of mine carries — not only beauty to look at, but a doorway to something felt: the meeting point of ancient sacred geometry and the science of the universe.
Looking for a work that holds a story like this — for your home or workspace?