About

Artist statement

Between encounter and memory

My work begins with people, objects, and situations that form part of my life. This is where I find what interests me most: a gesture that belongs only to one person, an object that still holds the presence of whoever used it, or a space transformed by those who inhabit it.

When I portray someone, I am interested in approaching what makes that person who they are. I do not understand this as something fixed or easily defined. It appears in their character, in certain gestures, and in the way they change, almost like a chameleon. I prefer to work from life because a person never remains the same, and the portrait develops over the time we share. For me, what happens during that encounter is an essential part of the work. The painting ultimately brings together different moments rather than responding to a single image.

In my still lifes, I begin from a different place. Objects allow me to work through memory and to preserve something of the people and places to which they are connected. Each has a specific history, and its position within the composition responds to relationships that exist for me before I begin painting. The viewer may not know the full context, but every object is there for a particular reason.

I am also interested in allowing the painting to retain the traces of its process. Resolved passages coexist with areas that have been scraped back, left open, or only suggested. Light structures and connects the people, objects, and space, while the materiality of the paint supports the image and, at times, creates tension within it.

My work exists between direct encounter and memory. I am interested in looking at the everyday without idealising it or turning it into something else, while recognising the intensity it already contains.