Picknick with love 6

I don’t consider myself a researcher. I see painting as a way to document my life as it unfolds, through the people I paint, the places I depict, and the fleeting moments I capture. Many of my works are straightforward observations — moments I’ve lived. Others are subtly staged, yet always rooted in real experience. In all of them, I try to shape a version of reality that feels more beautiful or more emotionally charged than the original moment. That’s why I don’t aim for realism: the real world already exists. Painting allows me to create something else — a heightened image, through color, composition, or gaze.

Recurring themes in my work include love and personal growth — particularly how the two are intertwined. In my current series, that development is shaped by my relationship: how falling in love has helped me grow into adulthood.

I use oil paint simply because it suits me. I’ve tried ceramics and other media, but painting holds endless space for progress — it fascinates me and keeps me learning. Compositionally, I borrow heavily from cinema. I find film especially compelling because it’s arguably the furthest evolution from painting. If painting was the first visual art — two-dimensional — then sculpture adds a third dimension. Film adds time, and sound. In that sense, it feels four-dimensional.

Still, I believe painting has something cinema doesn’t: pause. A film gives you no choice but to follow its pace. But in a painting, you can linger. The viewer has time to imagine what happened before and after the moment that’s frozen. I want to leave that space open. I hope people entertain themselves within the image — to get lost in it for weeks, not just hours.