What if Red is Not a Colour — But a Decision?
This collaboration did not begin with a plan. It began with a painting.
More than a decade ago, Natalie Turner encountered one of my works in Singapore — a woman in a red dress, standing before the city skyline. A figure turned away from the viewer, looking out. Holding both distance and possibility.
Years later, while living in Malaysia, she bought another painting. A woman in a green dress, standing before a glowing orange sun. Something had shifted between those two images. The gaze was no longer directed outward into a city — but inward, toward a centre. Toward something that was beginning to call.
Those paintings hung on Natalie's walls for years. Long before The Red Silk Dress was finished, before the salons, before Lisbon — there was already a quiet dialogue between her writing and my work. We were both exploring the same territory: women at thresholds.
Natalie Turner in her home, with her painting: Bride at the Financial District, 2016 by Ingela Johansson
An emotional yes
When Natalie asked me to collaborate, I said yes based on exactly that — an emotional yes.
Reading the book, I felt connected to Claudette's story. There were many parts I could relate to, many things I have experienced myself. I will not say too much about that, because you have an adventure ahead of you when you read it. But I will say: it has been a journey through all emotions to get here, and I felt each of them first in Southeast Asia — and again while painting.
This was also a new kind of creative experience for me: painting an entire collection in artistic conversation with an author. Not illustrations in a book, but paintings in a collaboration. A living dialogue between two creative languages.
When I asked Natalie why she had chosen me, her answer stayed with me:
"I did not choose you randomly. Your paintings were already on my walls. You paint women at thresholds — that space of transition is exactly the territory I was exploring while writing The Red Silk Dress. This collaboration was never really strategic. It was relational.
When I read that, I felt seen. Not just in what I paint — but in why I paint.
Artist Ingela Johansson with author Natalie Turner at the launch of The Red Silk Dress at the Editory Hotel in Lisbon.
Seven emotional thresholds
Rather than illustrating scenes from the novel, I chose to respond to seven emotional thresholds — the moments in Claudette's journey where something shifts: a fracture in an old life, the stirring of longing, the fragile courage of standing at the edge of change, the reclamation of truth, and finally the opening of the heart.
When Natalie shared the seven thresholds with me, it became a new personal journey as well. Some life lessons seen in a new light.
Painting mornings began in my red armchair, in stillness — candles lit, music playing, leaning into softness. I was not trying to illustrate the story. I was responding to what it opened up in me.
The first intuitive nudge came immediately. When I read the first emotional threshold and the word *self-erasure*, I could feel myself returning to that emotion. I drew inspiration from one of my old paintings from the time I was living in Southeast Asia — constantly working on my dream without fully realising what was working against me. I was also reminded of the feeling of being a bird in a golden cage. I chose that she was still holding on to her old life with one hand. The rest I leave open for you to discover.
Many meaningful things happened during the painting process. A red ladybug appeared in my home in the middle of January. I found my jade earrings — both symbols of luck and alignment. Symbols and their meaning became an important part of my art when I was living in Southeast Asia, and they still are. Red holds symbols that are sometimes visible and at other times more hidden.
From the studio of Ingela Johansson painting the living current from the Red Collection with flowers and candles.
The colors that run through everything
There are two colors running through all seven paintings: red and ochre.
The red is about Claudette. The ochre is the path.
A large part of the story takes place in Southeast Asia, and no color better evokes those landscapes — the earth, the stone, the temples — than ochre. I have used it across its full range, from yellow through to deep purple, just as it has been used throughout human history.
"People may say ochre is the earliest form of art and symbolism, but there's more to it. Ochre shows how our brains were developing, and that we were using our environment. It bridges the divide between art and science."* — Archaeologist Tammy Hodgskiss
Red, meanwhile, carries a meaning in Southeast Asian tradition that felt deeply right for this story. As the National Museum of Asian Art writes: "A color of vitality, passion, good fortune, and celebration, red has undeniable energy. It catches our eye and stirs our blood, forcing us to take notice."
Each time Claudette chooses red, something shifts — not dramatically, but deliberately. Red carries presence. Silk holds sensuality and softness. Together, they reflect a central tension in the story: strength and vulnerability existing at once.
The lipstick that found its way onto my canvas that winter was part of the same conversation — how the outer expression can align with, or feel disconnected from, the heart and soul.
I do believe that our colors change depending on the landscape and culture around us, and that color affects how we feel, often in the same way as in nature.
When I photographed the paintings side by side, I noticed that together they move from dark to light. That wasn't planned. It just happened. And it felt right.
During the making of The Red Collection the lipstick that I was wearing ended up on the painting Between Holding and Letting Go, artist Ingela Johansson
Songs from the studio
Music was a constant companion through this process. Each painting came with its own sound — a song that carried the feeling I was reaching for, that I listened to as I worked. I picked out a song that came back to me many time as I was working for each painting.
These are the songs from the studio:
Painting | Song
Beyond Holding and Letting Go | *Femme like U* — Emma Peters |
| Living Currents | *Silver Lining* — First Aid Kit |
| Her Own True Colors | *True Colors* — Anne Brun |
| Sovereign in Red | *Keeping Me Alive* — Jonathan Ray |
| Ask Me Anyway | *Luka* — Suzanne Vega |
| The Temple of Tomorrow | *Forevermore* — Yuna |
| Heart Unbound | *Experience* — Ludovico Einaudi |
One of those threads felt quietly significant: when I realised that Natalie had also been using Experience by Einaudi — without either of us planning it — it felt like another confirmation that we had been working in the same emotional space all along.
The songlist in the studio for painting the Red Collection
Where two languages meet
She writes through narrative. I work through colour, gesture, and light.
The novel speaks through story. The paintings speak through feeling. And somewhere in between — in the space between the written word and the painted surface — we meet.
I hope that as you move through the paintings and the book, they will spark something inside you. Not answers, but questions. Not conclusions, but openings.
Because that, in the end, is what this collection is an invitation to:
What is the story you see?
See the whole collection of original paintings here
Curious about the fine art prints? collection
Would you like to listen to the artist talk? watch
Want to read the book? The Red Silk Dress
Highlights photos/videos At the station of arrival
This is the first of two posts about the RED Collection and the Lisbon events. The second — Two Evenings in Lisbon — is coming soon.
Part of the RED Collection at the launch of The Red Silk Dress at the Editory Hotel in Lisbon, Portuga.
