A step into lore

 I’ve been looking at my work differently.

Not just physically, but mentally. Coming into the studio and seeing how pieces sit next to each other, how certain figures repeat, how moods and symbols keep circling the same ideas. It made me realize that a lot of my work has been living in the same world long before I ever named it.

That realization has changed how I move in the studio. There’s no pressure to make everything fit, no rules I have to follow. I paint what I want to paint. When something is finished, I step back and ask if it belongs to that world or if it’s simply its own thing. Some pieces connect. Some don’t. Both are important.

Thinking in terms of lore hasn’t boxed me in. It’s done the opposite. It’s made me more curious. It’s given the figures and forms somewhere to exist, somewhere to return to, and something to slowly reveal over time. I can look back at older work now and see new connections I didn’t notice before.

This has opened up new ways of sharing the work too. Zines, fragments, small publications, and eventually a space on my site dedicated to this evolving world. Not an explanation, but an archive. Something that grows alongside the paintings instead of ahead of them.

At the start of the year, it feels good to be in the studio with that kind of curiosity again. No pressure to define everything. Just paying attention to what’s already there and letting it unfold.