Silverberg hones in on everyday objects – from books to furniture – to explore where our inner and outer worlds meet. Made with a muted colour palette, her paintings radiate a quiet energy that has bewitched this week’s Spotlight champion, Hector Campbell, a writer, curator and co-founder of Soup gallery in London.

Campbell says: “Nina Silverberg’s paintings are characterised by solitary stillness and implied intimacy. They examine ideas of isolation, illness and the barriers we build between interior and exterior worlds. Timeless signifiers of human connection and comfort serve as her subject matter – recently opened books, gloves and bed frames. At once melancholy and magical, they suggest an inherent frailty and empowerment as coping mechanisms against our contemporary condition.”

Look closely at her work and you will spot unexpected details. Campbell adds: “In a poetic act of prophetic fallacy, rain often obscures the scenes, slanted and suspended in time as it stains the book pages, a recurrent teardrop-shaped trope.”

Silverberg often turns to paintings from the late Medieval period and early Renaissance for inspiration. She says: “I visited Giotto’s frescoes in Assisi at a young age, and they made a lasting impression on me. Now living in London, I’m able to visit some of the greatest works from that period by artists such as Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico and Piero della Francesca, all housed at the National Gallery. I’m drawn to the colour palette and skewed perspective of artworks from that time.”

For her solo show at Soup gallery, she has been looking at ideas put forward by Jorge Luis Borges, and other writers, such as Umberto Eco. She adds: “The exhibition will take the form of a symbolic library of the internal world, of the self, where different books each have their own small mysteries, brought together into one abstracted narrative.”

You can join Silverberg on this inner journey at Soup gallery from 7 March to 13 April 2024.