Dec 2023

I am interested in the kind of calm that allows us to notice more.

There are moments when looking becomes less hurried. The eye stays with a small variation in colour, a break in a line, a space that might otherwise have passed unnoticed. Nothing dramatic has happened. Yet the relationship with what is present has changed.

This is a quality I want to explore through my work.

Calm can hold complexity. A painting may carry many gestures, tensions and layers while offering the viewer a place to pause. I am drawn to that coexistence: the possibility that something intricate can be encountered without urgency.

When people describe feeling calm in the presence of my paintings, I receive that response with gratitude and curiosity. Each person brings a different history to the work. I cannot determine what they will feel, but I can remain attentive to the conditions the painting offers.

Does it allow the eye to move freely? Is there space to linger? Can a detail emerge gradually?

These questions connect the surface of a painting with a wider concern in my practice: how we make room for ourselves and for one another.

Attention requires room. It asks us to suspend, even briefly, the impulse to judge, explain or move on.

For me, calm begins to have meaning here. It becomes a capacity to remain present with something long enough for a relationship to form.