Artist Statement

I don’t paint to illustrate ideas. I paint because something needs to surface.

My work begins with tension. Not a concept, not a theory, but a friction I cannot resolve in words. The canvas becomes a site where that tension is allowed to exist without being solved. What unfolds is a negotiation between control, instinct, safety and risk.

 

In a phase of life where I no longer allow others to dictate how I should live, I am equally unwilling to dictate how someone else should see. I do not paint to impose conclusions but I paint to hold questions. The work may point toward themes of transition, resistance or inner conflict, but it does not prescribe interpretation. It offers a mirror, not a verdict.

 

I work physically. Oil paint, raw pigments and charcoal are layered, scraped back and rebuilt. Surfaces carry evidence of decisions made and undone. What remains has earned its place. What disappears still shapes the outcome. The psychological charge of the work lies in that history, in what has been confronted rather than concealed.

Abstraction allows space within contemporary painting to resist fixed meaning and instruction. It leaves room for projection, contradiction and personal meaning. If something feels unresolved, that is intentional. Resolution belongs to the viewer.

 

In certain paintings, recurring elements such as birds or flowers emerge. For me, they carry symbolic and spiritual meaning rooted in lived experience, particularly during times of transition and change. They are embedded in the work as layers, not as decoration. Because I am not interested in decorative abstraction. I am interested in the moment where control gives way to instinct and something real pushes through.

 

Art should not resolve too quickly. It should remain. It should ask something.

It should burn a little.