Why do I paint?

I think when someone asks me why I paint, I always struggle to answer immediately. For me, it feels like second nature – like asking someone why they go outside or why they eat. But when I start to dig deeper, I begin to unravel exactly why I paint and what my "why" is.

People often ask what you do, but rarely why you do it. I am a very curious person, always asking questions. In fact, sometimes I ask so many questions that people say, “Would you stop asking things?” I’ve never understood why anyone wouldn’t want to know as much as possible – there’s so much to learn about everything. Painting, to me, is exactly that: a constant unravelling of questions. Yet few of those questions ever get answered.

Painting is an ongoing process – my thoughts, curiosities, fears, and worries all spreading onto the work. And as life changes – sometimes disruptive, sometimes calming or chaotic – the painting changes with it, reflecting the tumultuous landscape of existence.

Unlike other art forms – a book, a film, a play, or a record – a painting shows everything at once. It’s there, slapped onto the canvas, staring back at you with raw conviction and integrity. I might spend 40 to 60 hours on a piece of work, feeling a hundred different emotions over that time. Yet all those feelings coexist in one single telling. There is no beginning or end – just the entirety of it. A painting tells a story, but not just one story. It holds a hundred narratives that unfold in one hit. That fascinates me, and it’s something I believe no other art form can achieve in quite the same way.

A painting also challenges you to assess constantly: It asks you questions, like, why did I put that mark in that particular place? Why did I use a colour that conflicts with another? What is the language of the piece? However you ask the painting questions too, and then you begin to have this conversation. Abstraction for me, allows limitless potential and curiosity. It enables me to learn more than I imagine and keep learning whilst the painting sits in an explicit and implicit nature of wonder.

Ultimately, painting is my way of processing the world. It speaks philosophically to the truth that you will never know all the answers. All you can simply do is keep exploring - and to me, that is incredibly wonderful.