New painting: What Remains

Sometimes we bring home more than photographs

This year, for the first time in my life, I visited a place that completely captivated me. It is not somewhere I feel the need to visit every year. In fact, I do not even know whether I will ever return.

But the feeling I experienced there has stayed with me.

And that is what I tried to bring to the canvas.

I was not aiming for an exact likeness. It was not about capturing every detail perfectly. I wanted to capture the atmosphere and the memory: that strange moment when you stand in a place you have seen a hundred times in photographs, yet in person it affects you in a completely different way.

Some places simply cannot be explained.

You have to experience them.

When the painting leads the painter

When I began painting, I had no idea what the painting would look like. I let intuition guide me. I added layers, took them away, returned to them and painted over them again. It was one of those paintings that determine their own direction.

And I simply followed its lead.

Perhaps that is precisely why finishing it feels so rewarding.

Today I added the final brushstroke and, at last, my signature. I always love that moment. It holds joy, relief and a little nostalgia. For several days, you live with a painting day after day, thinking about it and returning to it, until suddenly the moment comes when you know there is nothing more to add.

It is finished.

A painting in search of its story

This time, there is one more thing that makes it special to me.

It will be available to buy.

And I believe that one day it will find its person.

Perhaps someone who dreams of visiting this place one day. Perhaps someone who will buy it as a reminder of their own dream and the journey still ahead of them.

Or perhaps someone who has already been there.

Someone who will look at the painting and remember the atmosphere they experienced, the city lights and the emotions that cannot be photographed, but stay with you long after you return home.

Because sometimes we are buying more than a painting.

We are buying a memory.

Or a dream.

Can you recognise the place?

Now I would love to hear from you.

Can you tell from the details in the photographs which place inspired me?

I will give you just one clue.

I went there for the first time this year. Yet it is still on my mind.

Because some journeys come to an end.

But what matters most remains.