What we carry with us, what becomes visible

There are things we carry with us without even knowing it. Not as clear memories, not as stories we can retell, but as silent imprints, in how we see, in what we are drawn to, in the images that repeatedly return in our work.

I rarely start with a fully fleshed-out idea. More often, I begin with a feeling that can't be immediately named. Something that chafes, or something that lingers for no clear reason. Only later — sometimes much later — do I understand what was truly present all along.

Painting as a form of remembrance

Sometimes it feels as if I don't invent my images, but uncover them. There are elements that keep recurring. Not because I consciously choose them, but because they impose themselves. They reappear, in a different form, in a different composition, but with the same underlying charge. They are fragments of something larger, of origin, of culture, of a history that doesn't always seem directly mine, but which still resonates. Painting then becomes a way of remembering, even if that memory isn't entirely your own.

 

Fragments instead of a whole

My work is rarely fully 'finished' in the traditional sense. Forms are interrupted. Bodies seem incomplete. Images consist of layers that partly overlap and partly conceal each other. That's no coincidence. To me, identity doesn't feel like something complete or unambiguous. It's layered, shifting, sometimes contradictory. What is visible is only a part of what is truly at play. Fragmentation creates space. Space for interpretation, for doubt, for multiple meanings side by side.

 

The silent choices behind a painting.

Much of what shapes a work lies in small decisions. A color that becomes just a bit warmer. A line that is removed instead of added. An element that is deliberately left undeveloped. From the outside, these choices might seem invisible, but they determine the tension in a work. They determine whether something stays alive, or becomes stagnant. It's not grand gestures that make a painting, but an accumulation of subtle shifts.

When a painting resists

Not every work comes into being effortlessly. Some paintings start smoothly and then get stuck. Others start rough and only open up much later. There are moments when a work resists, when nothing seems right, when every addition pushes the image further away from you. These moments are essential. They force you to slow down. To look again. To let go of control. Often, that's exactly where a turning point lies: when the work no longer follows what you want, but invites you to listen to what it needs itself.

No perfect bodies

The women I paint are not intended as ideal forms. They are vulnerable, sometimes closed off, sometimes incomplete. Their posture is not directed at the viewer, but at an inner movement, something unfolding out of sight. Perfection doesn't interest me. What interests me is what lies beneath. The tension between what is visible and what remains hidden.

 

What people see, and what I intended

What I put into a work is not the same as what someone else sees in it. And that is precisely the intention. Some people recognize melancholy. Others see strength. Still others feel something they can't immediately name. That space — between intention and interpretation — makes a work alive. It means it's not fixed. That it can shift, depending on who is looking.

Recurring symbols

Some images keep returning. Not because I want to repeat them, but because their meaning is not yet exhausted. A flower, a landscape, a form, they carry something that cannot be captured in a single painting. Their meaning changes, depending on the context. What first feels personal, may later turn out to be cultural. What first seemed clear, later becomes more layered.

When is a work finished

There is no exact moment when a painting is 'finished'. There's no checklist. It's more of a shift, a moment when the work no longer demands intervention. When adding no longer deepens, but disturbs. That moment is rarely loud. It is silent. You feel that the work can exist on its own.

Living with art

A painting doesn't just live in the moment it is created. It truly gains meaning in the space it enters. In someone else's daily life. In how the light falls on it in the morning. In how it changes the longer you look at it. Art is not static. It develops in relation to the person who lives with it.

 

Keep searching

Perhaps that is the core. Not finding answers, but continuing to search. Each work is an attempt to understand something that cannot be fully captured. Something that presents itself repeatedly, in a different form. What we carry with us never becomes fully visible. But in the process of making, looking, and starting over, it sometimes comes a little closer.