In the Tension of Becoming
“People often tell me my creative process is interesting. I used to take it as a vague compliment — now I see it as something more radical.”
My work is not about producing fixed meanings or illustrating clear ideas. Rather, it is a continual negotiation with materials, emotions, and internal contradictions. I let uncertainty seep in; I don’t hide the mess. Each brushstroke, layer, or even hesitation is a trace of thinking — a visible record of a body trying to make sense of itself and the world.
What some call “interesting” is perhaps the tension between impulse and reflection, control and collapse. The creative process for me is not linear, but cyclical, fragmentary, and deeply affective. It reflects how I resist dominant expectations of clarity, resolution, and polish. My paintings often feel unfinished — not because they lack form, but because they refuse closure.
In this sense, the studio becomes a stage where the self is continually dismantled and remade. The process itself becomes an act of resistance — not just to aesthetic norms, but to the very structures that discipline how we are seen, felt, and understood.
During the exhibition process, I realized that I am constantly in a state of change. For example, I challenged myself to paint with my left hand, breaking away from my usual comfort zone, and kept shifting the orientation of the canvas to disrupt familiar patterns. My first year in London was also a significant transformation. I struggled to adapt to the culture here, yet I kept trying—and ultimately, I had no choice but to accept it.My exploration of de-definition is connected to this refusal to let the subconscious confines of comfort dictate my practice. I want to embrace uncertainty, ambiguity, and even the restless anxiety that comes with them. These states are not inherently good or bad; they are simply my authentic feelings. I don’t want to escape or avoid them, even though I am often afraid.
Texture left by direct hand contact
Traces left by skin contact with pigment
Pigment deposition, fingerprints, scratches, overlap_BUT I
Pigment deposition, fingerprints, scratches, overlap_BUT II
Embodied Mark-Making: Direct Touch in Practice
Direct touch is central to my painting process. I work with my hands, fingers, and body to apply pigment directly onto the surface, allowing the skin to become both tool and sensor. In touch, I encounter myself — the pressure, warmth, and movement of the body records emotional states that cannot be fully spoken. This method resists the distance and hierarchy embedded in traditional painting techniques; instead of controlling the image from afar, I let the surface respond to proximity, contact, and vulnerability. Through repeating these gestures, I affirm my own presence: the painting becomes a site where the body is not disciplined, but recognized — not corrected, but allowed to exist, to feel, and to assert itself.
For my MA Show, I chose to paint the exhibition walls a saturated yellow, creating an environment that holds the work rather than simply presenting it. The colour acted as a temperature — a warm field that echoed the heat of the body and the immediacy of touch in my painting process. Moving away from the neutrality of the white cube allowed the work to be felt before it was interpreted.
One painting was installed on the floor, inviting viewers to look downward, to approach physically, even to adjust their posture and breathing. This shift in orientation mirrored the way I paint — close, grounded, and with the body fully engaged. The marks formed through direct touch and pressure became more legible in this spatial arrangement; they were not gestures of distance, but traces of presence.
In the space, I noticed that viewers slowed down. They stepped closer. Some leaned over the floor piece as if entering a private moment. This confirmed for me that touch can extend beyond the studio — that the sensorial logic of making can also shape the experience of viewing. The exhibition affirmed that these works are not just images, but encounters in which the body recognizes itself and is allowed to take up space.
