She was standing there

This painting, 'She Was Standing There', captures a hauntingly quiet yet powerfully surreal moment—a woman caught between stillness and motion, vulnerability and resilience. Set against the vast emptiness of “nowhere,” the composition is stark: a lone figure waits at the edge of a highway, suspended in time. She wears an eye patch—an immediate sign of hardship or survival—and clutches a couple of worn bags, her belongings condensed into a few precious items.

The landscape is sparse but striking. The sky is clear, awash with the fresh, clean light of spring. The air feels crisp, the sunlight casting soft shadows that stretch along the asphalt. There are no cars. No houses. No signs. Just her, and the road.

What gives the painting its emotional gravity is the tension it evokes. The absurdity of the scene—a person so clearly out of place in such an empty, transitional space—commands attention. It confronts the viewer with unspoken questions: Where is she going? Where has she come from? Her presence is an intrusion on the ordinary, turning a mundane roadside moment into a quietly profound encounter.

For me, the artist, this moment was a sudden flare of awareness—a flash of consciousness that interrupted the flow of daily life. She crossed not just the road but my perception, shifting something inward. The inability to help her or understand her story left a mark, a kind of existential itch that found its resolution only in art. Painting her allowed me to hold onto that moment, to process its strange weight, to dignify her presence in a way reality wouldn’t allow.

The influence on me was layered: aesthetic, emotional, philosophical. The scene may have appeared absurd, but in that absurdity was a fragile kind of truth—the kind that art is uniquely suited to preserve. The painting isn’t just a record of what I saw, but a mirror of what it made me feel: awareness, discomfort, empathy, beauty. And perhaps, most powerfully, the humbling realisation that not all stories are ours to solve—some are only ours to witness.

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Manon Saur (Manon S.) is a visual artist whose work contemplates the irresistible tension between the necessity and absurdity of social behavior. Her figures—often caught mid-thought or mid-gesture—inhabit scenes that are both intimate and theatrical, where being oneself becomes the central performance. Fascinated by the complex geometry of relationships, she explores the curves of bodies, the architecture of space, and the silent narratives held within a glance or gesture.

Born in The Netherlands, Manon’s artistic journey has taken her across continents—living and working in Mexico, France, Sweden, and notably Poland, where she founded Studio MARMALADA in a derelict building in Warsaw. This remarkable space, bathed in natural light, allowed her to scale up her work and collaborate with other artists on immersive exhibitions. Studio MARMALADA became a dynamic hub of creative activity and gained local acclaim (see YouTube: Manon S and Friends, Manon S – Things, Manon S – Noc Muzeów, Studio MARMALADA).

Now based on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia, Manon draws deeply from her coastal environment. Her practice encompasses painting, printmaking, and drawing—techniques she sees as inseparable facets of her visual language. Whether rendering the swell of a seascape, the silhouette of a tree, or the tilt of a human head, she continues to probe the emotional architecture of lived experience.

Working on small to medium canvases and paper, often in watercolor and mixed media, Manon Saur remains committed to her inquiry into presence, connection, and the quietly surreal theatre of everyday life.