Reflections of Time: Beneath the Surface of Memory

Claude Monet’s  On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (1868) captures a quiet moment of contemplation, where a lone figure gazes upon the river, lost in thought. The original work is a delicate interplay of shadow and light, where the trees cast their reflections upon the water, blending the real with the ephemeral. Monet painted the Seine not merely as a body of water, but as a passage, a threshold between past and present, between stillness and movement.  

This conceptual reinterpretation deepens that threshold, turning the riverbank into a space where time and reality blur, where the boundary between memory and the cosmos dissolves. The figure seated beneath the trees remains, still watching the water, but now she is joined by another presence—one that exists in a different plane. A man, his form partially translucent, stands within the glow of a great celestial sphere. His silhouette is marked by crimson tendrils, as if rooted in the universe itself, his presence both spectral and tangible.  

The landscape has shifted, fractured between worlds. The upper portion retains the monochrome softness of Monet’s Impressionist brushstrokes, where light flickers upon the river and houses stand quiet in the distance. Yet below, the earth is no longer solid—it burns with cosmic fire, nebulae swirling where grass once lay. The river is no longer just a reflective surface; it is a veil, a mirror that does not simply capture the sky above but reveals what lies beyond.  

Color becomes a storyteller in this transformation. The warm golden glow of the sphere casts an ethereal light upon the scene, creating a separation between past and present, between what was and what is returning. The fiery reds and cosmic purples that bloom across the lower half of the image contrast sharply with the grayscale above, signaling a disruption, an unraveling of time. The woman remains unaware, seated in the quiet of the riverbank, while the figure within the sphere stands at the edge of existence, caught between remembrance and arrival.  

As an artist, my intention with this piece was to explore the idea of memory as something alive, something that does not simply fade but lingers, waiting for a moment to resurface. Monet painted this scene as a fleeting moment of solitude, but solitude is never empty—it is filled with echoes, with thoughts that loop back, with ghosts that stand just beyond sight. The man in the sphere is not simply a figure; he is a presence from another time, a memory materialized, a soul returning to a place once familiar but now distant.  

The cosmic explosion beneath the surface of the earth represents the unseen layers of reality—grief, longing, time bending upon itself. The trees still provide shade, the river still moves, the sky still stretches into the horizon, but something deeper is unfolding beneath it all. The great sphere is not just light; it is a boundary, a moment where two timelines briefly touch before drifting apart again.  

This piece is not only about space and memory—it is about presence, about the way certain places carry something more than just what is visible. The Seine has always been a river of reflections, but here it reflects something more than the world above—it reflects what has been lost, what remains, what waits just beyond perception.  

Through this composition, I wanted to evoke the feeling of standing at the edge of remembrance, where past and present are indistinguishable, where those we think are gone are merely waiting on the other side of the river, watching, waiting, existing in the light.