I genuinely don’t know yet if this painting is finished.

And maybe that’s exactly the point.

Lullaby was built from two completely separate encounters. Charlotte and Sarah never posed together. The intimacy between them had to be constructed slowly through composition, memory, drawing, colour relationships, and a lot of trial and error trying to make two separate realities belong to the same emotional space.

That process alone took a long time.

The painting measures 120 × 120 cm, larger than life, and very early on — while sketching — I realised the composition was built around a strong diagonal movement connecting the two figures and splitting the square almost in half. Once I saw that structure emerge, the square format became unavoidable.

From there, the real challenge started.

Different skin tones.
Different lighting situations.
Different energies.
Different emotional temperatures.

And honestly, that was exactly the part that fascinated me most as a painter.

Trying to create one continuous visual journey between these two women. Trying to make the light travel naturally between them. Trying to harmonise the figures first — and then harmonise them with the rest of the painting itself.

Some areas became highly resolved.
Others remained almost untouched.

And that tension became part of the work.

There are sections I intentionally left open because they arrived exactly where I wanted them to be. One of my favourite passages in the entire painting is actually the unfinished foot in the lower right corner. That area excites me more than many fully rendered sections. It still carries movement, uncertainty, possibility.

Other parts I still question.

This painting has already travelled through exhibitions in London and is currently still away from the studio. But what interests me most now is not how people react to it. It’s how I will react to it once it comes back.

Will I look at it and finally feel peace with it? Or will I immediately feel the urge to destroy parts of it and continue pushing?

Embarrassment is also part of painting.

I think artists rarely speak openly enough about that feeling — the strange vulnerability of putting something into the world when you yourself are still uncertain about it.

Especially when the work begins moving into territories that are less controlled, less traditionally “finished.”

Over time, I think my collectors, students, and audience have become more familiar with what I’m searching for in my practice. But the real question is still always personal.

Can I live with this painting?
Can I stop before overworking destroys the thing that first made it pulse?

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