Ana Cherkezishvili

“Sonder on Elizabeth Street” is a watercolor painting created on site at Elizabeth Street Garden during one of the first sunny days of spring. As I began painting the atmosphere, I started to notice the behaviors of the people around me—some were reading, others were talking on the phone, meeting up with friends, or listening to music. I overheard bits of conversations, and in that moment, I realized that every person has a life as complex as mine, filled with stories I’ll never fully know. I found myself experiencing “sonder”—the realization that every passerby has a life as vivid and intricate as my own, with their own thoughts, struggles, and moments of joy.

In the brief time I spent capturing their lives in this shared space, I became aware of how quickly these moments pass, how I’ll never see these people again, and how I’ll never know what their lives hold beyond what I observed and overheard in that moment. These figures are now a permanent part of my painting, but they remain strangers, each with their own unique story, unknown to me beyond the momentary intersection of our lives, that sunny day, on Elizabeth Street.