Where The Wound Is The Voice Is
A Soviet-era bus shelter stands quietly at the center of the composition—its geometric form worn and slightly off-kilter, an artifact of a grand design that never quite arrived. These structures, scattered across vast and often empty landscapes, once promised connection, progress, movement. Here, it floats in an ambiguous space, half-scenic, half-symbolic—surrounded by soft hills and pale sky, but grounded in something darker. Wild flowers stretch into the foreground, oversized and surreal, their petals opening in ghostly whites, with bruises of yellow, green, and violet creeping through their surfaces like old wounds.
This palette is tender, but not gentle. The colors speak of impact—of pressure, time, and healing not yet complete. Purples, yellows, and greens bloom like bruises across the canvas, carrying a strange kind of beauty. As Hélène Cixous wrote of the body, there is a truth that emerges through the wound—what she called a “writing with the blood of the wound.” The bruises here are not just signs of harm; they are a form of speech, a soft resistance. The blooms do not soften the scene so much as reveal it: the violence of abandoned dreams, the way ideals imprint themselves even as they fall apart. And still, the flowers rise. This isn’t nostalgia. It is persistence—a vision still rooted in the ground, despite everything.
There’s a quiet optimism beneath the surface, threaded through the melancholy. The painting holds a vision of a world that tried—and failed—but could still be reimagined. The shelter may no longer serve its purpose, but it remains upright, holding space. The flowers—fragile, luminous, and imperfect—continue to grow. This is not a utopia, but it gestures toward one. Through bruises and broken promises, the painting makes space for the possibility of care, of solidarity, of something tender pushing through what remains.
A Soviet-era bus shelter stands quietly at the center of the composition—its geometric form worn and slightly off-kilter, an artifact of a grand design that never quite arrived. These structures, scattered across vast and often empty landscapes, once promised connection, progress, movement. Here, it floats in an ambiguous space, half-scenic, half-symbolic—surrounded by soft hills and pale sky, but grounded in something darker. Wild flowers stretch into the foreground, oversized and surreal, their petals opening in ghostly whites, with bruises of yellow, green, and violet creeping through their surfaces like old wounds.
This palette is tender, but not gentle. The colors speak of impact—of pressure, time, and healing not yet complete. Purples, yellows, and greens bloom like bruises across the canvas, carrying a strange kind of beauty. As Hélène Cixous wrote of the body, there is a truth that emerges through the wound—what she called a “writing with the blood of the wound.” The bruises here are not just signs of harm; they are a form of speech, a soft resistance. The blooms do not soften the scene so much as reveal it: the violence of abandoned dreams, the way ideals imprint themselves even as they fall apart. And still, the flowers rise. This isn’t nostalgia. It is persistence—a vision still rooted in the ground, despite everything.
There’s a quiet optimism beneath the surface, threaded through the melancholy. The painting holds a vision of a world that tried—and failed—but could still be reimagined. The shelter may no longer serve its purpose, but it remains upright, holding space. The flowers—fragile, luminous, and imperfect—continue to grow. This is not a utopia, but it gestures toward one. Through bruises and broken promises, the painting makes space for the possibility of care, of solidarity, of something tender pushing through what remains.
A Soviet-era bus shelter stands quietly at the center of the composition—its geometric form worn and slightly off-kilter, an artifact of a grand design that never quite arrived. These structures, scattered across vast and often empty landscapes, once promised connection, progress, movement. Here, it floats in an ambiguous space, half-scenic, half-symbolic—surrounded by soft hills and pale sky, but grounded in something darker. Wild flowers stretch into the foreground, oversized and surreal, their petals opening in ghostly whites, with bruises of yellow, green, and violet creeping through their surfaces like old wounds.
This palette is tender, but not gentle. The colors speak of impact—of pressure, time, and healing not yet complete. Purples, yellows, and greens bloom like bruises across the canvas, carrying a strange kind of beauty. As Hélène Cixous wrote of the body, there is a truth that emerges through the wound—what she called a “writing with the blood of the wound.” The bruises here are not just signs of harm; they are a form of speech, a soft resistance. The blooms do not soften the scene so much as reveal it: the violence of abandoned dreams, the way ideals imprint themselves even as they fall apart. And still, the flowers rise. This isn’t nostalgia. It is persistence—a vision still rooted in the ground, despite everything.
There’s a quiet optimism beneath the surface, threaded through the melancholy. The painting holds a vision of a world that tried—and failed—but could still be reimagined. The shelter may no longer serve its purpose, but it remains upright, holding space. The flowers—fragile, luminous, and imperfect—continue to grow. This is not a utopia, but it gestures toward one. Through bruises and broken promises, the painting makes space for the possibility of care, of solidarity, of something tender pushing through what remains.