I’m returning to the studio

“A year of change, a return to creating.”

Return to the studio - 2026

Hi collectors and friends,

I’ve been quiet.

Not because I stopped being an artist—but because life demanded something deeper than production.

This past year pulled me into places no studio schedule could compete with: loss, birth, family shifts, and the kind of emotional weight that rearranges your internal architecture. My creative process didn’t disappear, but it went underground. Observing. Absorbing. Grieving. Loving. Becoming.

And in that space, I made a decision many artists are afraid to make.

I paused.

I stepped back from commitments. I took a sabbatical from the Visual Art Scholars program. I let myself be human before being productive. There was no way to paint honestly while life itself was repainting me.

Now, in 2026, I’m coming back—fully.

Not to “stay busy.”
Not to decorate.
But to build a body of work that is truer, braver, and more intentional than anything I’ve done before.

This year marks my return to full-time creating.

New paintings.
New narratives.
New exploration of womanhood, history, satire, survival, beauty, and contradiction.

The work ahead is rooted in everything I couldn’t articulate last year—but carried.

This newsletter is reopening as a living studio journal: a place where I’ll share works in progress, new series, exhibition news, thoughts from the studio, and the evolution of what’s coming next.

If you’re here, it tells me something: you’re not just interested in art—you’re interested in process, transformation, and meaning.

I’m grateful you’re still here.

The studio lights are back on.

With intention,
Tronja