Where Have You Been? Painting

My creative work covers a few issues: solitude, beauty of human nature, aesthetics of emotions and vulnerability, human relationships, love, abstract places, serenity, and dreams. The reason why I create art is that I feel the creative call within me and I have the urge to respond. I am an artist because I have something to say, and most of the time, it is something that words cannot express. Besides, I do feel I have this excessive energy within me. Just like wine needs to pour out while boiling or the vessel will burst, the same way, I feel that if I do not paint, this inner energy will destroy me as a counter-reaction. Mary Oliver said: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” Most of my artworks represent human figures in abstract environments. Most of my characters look sorrowed - by this, I am trying to show that there is nothing wrong with being worried, sad, overthinking. We are human beings with such diverse and complicated minds. Human sadness accompanies the thinking process, and it is in fact very healthy. I want to show how beautiful I find humans and, especially, our mental or physical imperfections, flaws, and bliss of our relationships, this interchange. Most of my human figures are pictured either alone or in duet. This is because I believe that we are all alone at the end of the day, and this should not intimidate but comfort us. And it will do so as long as we look deep down in ourselves, explore our minds, listen to our hearts instead and realize that as long as we have ourselves, we are never lonely. I paint duets as well because I think the quality of relationship one can have one-on-one is deeper, more intimate, genuine, and precious. I only paint stories and emotional experiences that I have gone through myself. I cannot let myself speak for somebody else. I work with emotion, and my main intention, asides from self-expression, is to pass these genuine emotions onto the audience and let them relate. If they feel something by looking at my work, I will feel accomplished.