Acknowledgement of Country

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and work in Melbourne (Narrm), the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation.

Rehann Vazid is Melbourne-based watercolour artist & Educator whose practice explores the dynamic and expressive potential of watercolour. He draws inspiration from his time in nature - hiking, snorkeling, kayaking and his love of literature and poetry, and finds a way to channel that into his art. He uses his art and teaching to share a message - to get out of the chair, the studio and to go outside into nature. It works wonders for the art, but also for the artist.

After a 15-year career in product and user experience design, Rehann made a deliberate transition into painting full-time. Along the way, he adopted several personal principles that profoundly shape his artistic life: he does not sell art, do competitions or exhibitions. He has minimal social media presence, as he believes that public performance and digital visibility often disrupt an artist’s growth and ability to discover who they truly are as an artist.

In both his art and his teaching, immediacy is central. Rehann paints wet-into-wet, typically completing a work within 20–30 minutes while the paper is still wet. He teaches only in person, rejecting online classes and recorded tutorials in favour of real, embodied learning where attention, intuition and physical engagement shape the outcome. His teaching focuses on developing intuitive skills, painting fearlessly, building confidence and understanding how to create luminosity and movement in watercolour. After living in India and Australia for 2 decades each, he now mostly spends his time travelling, painting & teaching.

A slightly more candid Intro. More generic, yet more true.

1.

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

In the middle of the journey of my life I was returned to myself in a dark forest, where the true way was lost.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!

Ah! it is hard to speak of that savage forest, dense and difficult, which even when recalling renews my fear.

Tant’ è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte.

So bitter, death is hardly more severe. But to retell the good discovered there, I'll also tell the other things I saw.

- Dante | Inferno C1, The Divine Comedy

2.

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver, The Journey

3.

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,

and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.