Painting Between Rain and Reflection: My Residency at the Japanese Garden

This summer, I’ve been painting onsite at the University of Alberta Botanical Garden, focusing primarily on the Japanese Garden — a space designed to foster quiet reflection, connection with nature, and a sense of timeless balance.

July, 2025 - Japanese Garden - Alberta

The garden itself is filled with elegant details: a red bridge, koi ponds that shimmer with colour, curved pines, and stone lanterns that echo tradition. With every visit, I find something new to respond to — whether it’s the way light scatters across water, or the call of a bird perched on the lantern.

Small Works: A Sketch and a Watercolour Postcard

“Japanese pond, essence of it’s simplicity” Watercolour Postcard - July 2025 - Japanese Garden - Alberta

Among the pieces I’ve created so far is an ink sketch of the garden bridge, drawn while observing its form and how it sits in the landscape. This study helped me decide how (and when) to include the bridge in a larger oil painting later on. It was a quiet moment of thinking through composition with pen and paper — a kind of architectural meditation.

I also painted a simplified watercolour postcard — a small, quick plein air piece that captures the mood of the pond on a still morning. It's not meant to show every detail, but instead to convey the essence of the garden — peaceful, layered, and soft.

These pieces aren’t just warm-ups — they’re part of a deeper conversation with the space and how I translate it into visual form.

About the Collection i’m making during my live art on Sundays

I’ve spent nearly every painting session immersed in the Japanese Garden, letting its balance of silence, movement, and symbolism guide my brush.

The Japanese Garden is a curated space of harmony, where time slows. Every corner offers something quiet and meaningful: a bell that echoes gently, a bridge that invites reflection, koi gliding through rippling waters. Inspired by these elements, I’ve been creating a series of small paintings — snapshots of light, colour, and emotion — that I’ll continue building into a cohesive body of work.

So far, I’ve completed three smaller oil paintings and a watercolour and a few postcard pieces, each rooted in real moments and observations while painting onsite. — each rooted in real moments of weather, light, and emotion. While I’m saving most of these new works for a future exhibit, you may be able to view them onsite during my live painting sessions.

If you're visiting the garden, especially on Sundays, stop by the Japanese Garden area — you might catch me painting live and get a quiet preview of the collection-in-progress.

Follow Along or Collect

While most works will debut in an exhibition later on, I’ve released a few select paintings for early collectors - Pieces I made in my previous residencies at the Botanical garden:

🖼 Available Paintings:

Tranquility, Oil on canvas - Currently available at the Garden in the welcome Centre.

Lillies on water, (Also known as the Mirror of light) Oil on canvas - Currently available at the Garden in the welcome centre.

Dance of leaves in the pond, (also known as mirror in the water) Oil on canvas - Currently available at the Garden in the welcome center.
→ [View Paintings Here]

🎨 Commission Garden-Inspired Work:
→ [Learn More / Commission a Custom Piece]

📍 Visit Me at the Garden:
Painting live most Sundays (weather permitting)

📸 Sneak Peeks & Bird Videos:
→ [Instagram] | Hashtag me if you go on Sunday: #mariamqureshi #botanicalgarden

This residency has been a chance to slow down, listen, observe, and paint in ways that feel both spontaneous and deeply considered. Thank you for being part of this journey and supporting the art as it unfolds.

Limited Prints and Apparel on FineArt America : Koi bathing in the sun: Digital Ink and Digtal Watercolour, 2025

With gratitude,
Mariam Qureshi
Painter of nature, reflection, and presence