PAINTINGS

My Single Line work began as a survival tactic. My anxiety has always carried a sense of urgency I can only describe as be productive or die. Stillness rarely felt like rest, it felt like danger. In those moments, instead of running, I reached for pen and paper. What began as distraction became ritual, drawing with one continuous line.

The line became a mirror of my internal state. Its loops, repetitions, and turns reflect the patterns of anxious thought, circling, doubling back, never fully settling. What appears abstract is, for me, a transcription. The act of drawing gives form to what feels uncontainable, turning anxiety into something visible and held.

Over time, the line became a symbol of endurance. It moves forward even as it tangles, adapting as it goes. Up close it can feel chaotic, but from a distance there is cohesion, as if it has always been leading somewhere. The dots along the line act as interruptions, markers of moments that shift its course. Together, they form a record rather than a perfect path.

This approach extends into my painting practice, where the line becomes form, subject, and presence. The work moves between flowers, people, animals, and scenes, each treated as a moment of observation and internal translation.

The flowers, often presented in vases, exist as quiet still lifes but also as reflections on control and inevitability. Removed from their natural environment and placed on display, they become symbols of something preserved for viewing while already in the process of decline. Even within that condition, they continue to hold form and presence, doing what they can before decomposition takes over.

The people and animals are treated similarly, approached as if sitting in front of me in a traditional portrait setting. These works become moments of connection, whether with another person, an animal, or a fragment of myself. The abstraction allows them to exist somewhere between recognition and distance, familiar but not fixed.

The scenes expand this further, placing figures within simple narratives or environments, a person driving, a stalled car, someone lying and listening to the radio. These moments are not grand, but they hold a kind of quiet weight. They exist in-between, like pauses in the line, where something is happening but not fully resolved.

For me, the single line is both coping mechanism and philosophy, and painting becomes an extension of that same system. It embodies anxiety but also endurance. It is the visible thread of my inner life, drawn out into different forms. And in following it, whether through line or paint, I find a rare quiet, a way to be inside my chaos without being consumed by it.

Paintings are 18 x 24 Acrylic on Heavyweight Cold Pressed Watercolor Paper, and available for purchase.