I sometimes look back at my paintings the way others might leaf through old journals. Not for answers, exactly—but for traces. Marks that say I was here, this mattered, this is how it felt to be alive at that moment.
A beautiful and meaningful page in my sketchbook.
Each canvas carries more than colour and form. It holds the pace of my days, the pauses I didn’t plan, the moments when life felt full, and others when it felt uncertain. Even when I’m not consciously telling a story, my life finds its way in. The work records what my hands were doing while my mind was busy living.
I don’t paint to document events. I paint to stay present. To notice what lingers. Over time, I’ve realized that the accumulation of these works becomes a kind of evidence—not of achievements, but of attention. Of showing up again and again, even when the path isn’t clear.
Some paintings feel calm, others restless. Some are dense, others barely holding together. I don’t edit those qualities out. They’re honest reflections of where I was when the work came into being. In that sense, the studio becomes a place where living is quietly acknowledged, not judged or refined.
I like the idea that long after I’ve forgotten the specifics of a day or a season, the canvas will remember. Not in words, but in gestures. In layers. In decisions made intuitively, without explanation.
Art, for me, isn’t proof of productivity. It’s proof of presence. Evidence that I paid attention. That I moved through time with curiosity. That I kept going.
And maybe that’s enough.