People often assume artists walk into the studio with a vision.
A plan or a destination already mapped out.
A neat little story they’re trying to pull into existence.
If only it were that clean.
For me, the work begins somewhere far less certain.
I don’t walk into the studio knowing what I’m doing or where I’m heading. There’s no sketch waiting to be executed, no reference image taped to the wall or a technique I fall back on like a safety net.
There’s no method here.
No formula or fixed idea waiting to be realised.
What I walk into each day is uncertainty. Deliberate, chosen, lived-in uncertainty.
It’s like stepping in so deep that suddenly there’s nothing solid beneath my feet.
Nothing to grab on to or lean on.
And that’s exactly the point.
Because when there’s nothing to rely on, something else wakes up.
Alert. Honest. Something that doesn’t come from trying to control the outcome.
I know one thing for sure: playing it safe would be easier.
It would be predictable. Comfortable. Far less demanding.
There are days I wonder what life would look like if I painted like a “sensible” person. A tidy plan, a sketch before paint touches canvas, a clear idea of where things are meant to land.
Some structure and some certainty.
A roadmap.
But that’s not where the work lives.
And it’s not where I live either.
The tension of not knowing is where the pulse is.
It’s where the paintings surprise me and where they become something I could never have designed in my head.
If I already knew the destination, I wouldn’t bother taking the journey.
Painting this way isn’t terrifying, but it is unsettling.
It keeps me awake, present, and paying attention.
It asks something of me every single time I step into the studio.
That’s why I keep coming back.
Because in that drifting, groundless space without guarantees or rehearsed outcomes, I feel more alive than anywhere else.
This is the part I can’t teach.
I can’t package it. I can’t turn it into a process or a promise.
It’s the heartbeat of the whole thing.
Not knowing isn’t a flaw.
It’s the work.
It’s the practice.
It’s the whole point.