01 · The gaze
Beyond the frame
Hanna looks away from the viewer. Her composed expression introduces distance and gives the portrait its psychological restraint.
Female Portraits: Looking Back to the Past
Union
2022
Union (2022) is a mixed-media portrait by Séfora Camazano from the series Female Portraits: Looking Back to the Past. The work portrays Hanna, a Ukrainian woman displaced by war, through a composition that places solitude and the desire for reunion in deliberate tension.
Enquire for availability
Medium
Mixed media — photography, digital painting and hand-painted intervention.
Giclée Fine Art print on 100% cotton, acid-free canvas with UV conservation varnish.
Dimensions
107 × 87.5 cm (42.13 × 34.45 in)
Year
2022
Series
Female Portraits: Looking Back to the Past
The protagonist
The story of Hanna
Hanna left Ukraine in 2022 with her two children after Russia's invasion forced the family apart. Her husband was unable to leave the country at that time, while Hanna arrived in Spain without speaking the language and without an established support network.
Separation was not new to her. During childhood, Hanna spent years living in difficult conditions in Ukrainian orphanages. By the time Séfora Camazano portrayed her, her life had already been marked by more than one rupture.
In Union, the family is absent from the image, but present in the title.
The portrait does not attempt to illustrate those events. It holds Hanna in a moment of stillness, allowing biography to remain behind the image rather than consume it.
Hanna tells her story · Valencia, 2022
The meaning of the title
Why this work
is called Union
Union refers directly to Hanna's wish to see her family together again after war separated her and her children from her husband.
The title is deliberately at odds with what the viewer sees: a single seated figure. Reunion exists beyond the frame, not as something accomplished, but as something still awaited.
That absence gives the title its force. Union names what the image cannot yet show.
The work is less an image of reunion than a portrait made in the interval before it.
Keys to reading the work
Six visual keys to
reading Union
02 · The hands
Contained tension
Her interlocked hands remain still but not relaxed, concentrating the tension of patience and uncertainty.
03 · The yellow dress
The source of light
Yellow dominates the composition, giving Hanna a luminous presence against the darker surrounding tones.
04 · The black fur
Visual weight
The dark fur anchors the figure and intensifies the contrast with the warmth of the dress.
05 · The stillness
The time of waiting
The absence of action creates a suspended moment: desire is present, but resolution remains beyond Hanna's control.
06 · The title
The family beyond the image
Hanna came to Spain with her two children while her husband remained in Ukraine. Union names her wish to see the family together again.
Curatorial reading
A portrait of union
built from absence
Union is structured around a contradiction: its title speaks of togetherness, while the composition presents Hanna alone.
The seated pose, introspective gaze and interlocked fingers create a contained image. Nothing in the portrait narrates war directly. The tension comes instead from knowing that the stillness before us belongs to a life interrupted elsewhere.
Formally, the yellow dress gathers the light while the black fur and the carved Savonarola chair anchor the figure in darker, denser elements. The contrast gives Hanna a clear pictorial presence without turning biography into illustration.
The title therefore operates beyond the visible scene. Union does not depict reunion; it gives form to the distance that precedes it.
Artistic reference
In dialogue with Joaquín Sorolla
Union takes Elena in a Yellow Tunic (1909), by Joaquín Sorolla, as its compositional point of departure. The seated pose, the yellow garment and the quiet concentration of the figure remain visible within the new portrait.
Séfora Camazano preserves that visual structure while replacing its original context with Hanna's contemporary presence. The reference to Sorolla becomes a framework through which a historical portrait is reactivated by another woman, another time and another lived reality.
Elena in a Yellow Tunic
Joaquín Sorolla · 1909
Creative process
From photographic session
to finished work
Union began with a photographic session with Hanna. The pose, the relationship with the chair and the distinctive gesture of her hands established the structure from which the final composition developed.
The image was subsequently transformed through digital painting, Giclée Fine Art printing on acid-free cotton canvas and hand-painted intervention, before receiving a protective UV conservation varnish.
Union in the artist's studio · Valencia
Union · Studio view
Current exhibition venue
Union on view
Palacio Santa Clara, Autograph Collection
Valencia, Spain
Galerie Portraits
Related edition
Interested in this artwork?
Acquire
Union
Séfora responds personally to enquiries
Enquire about the artworkThe original artwork includes
Certificate of Authenticity signed by the artist
Complete technical documentation
High-resolution photographic documentation
Personalised support for collectors