Held in Absence

This mixed media painting was created through a slow, multi‑stage process over several months and is composed as a diptych across two canvases, each measuring 100 × 70 cm. Although the final work appears minimal, it carries the trace of repeated cycles of adding and removing material, allowing the image to emerge gradually through reduction as much as through gesture.
Working with oil and ink, the process explores negative space as an active element rather than an absence. Layers were built, disrupted, masked and partially erased, revealing moments of clarity and interruption along the way. Real organic plant forms were used alongside hand‑cut stencils and templates, leaving imprints that sit somewhere between presence and memory.
The approach was deliberately intuitive and physical: placing, lifting away and responding to what remained. What is visible in the final composition is not the accumulation of marks, but the residue of decisions — a balance between control and letting go. The work invites a slower reading, where space, silence and restraint carry as much weight as colour and form.
Medium: Oil and ink on canvas
Format: Diptych (two canvases)
Dimensions: 100 × 70 cm each