Interior Castle
"I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond, in which there are many rooms."
Teresa of Ávila, 1577
I
Memory · Architecture
The rooms I paint most often are the ones I have never stood in. Memory is not a photograph; it is a plan drawing, redrawn each time it is consulted, until the house that remains is entirely one's own.
II
Pilgrimage · Faith
Walking is the only technique I trust. Days of limestone, dust, shadow at the same hour, and then, without ceremony, a colour that has no business being there. That is where the blue comes from.
III
Nostalgia · Dreams
Nostalgia has been mistaken for softness. It is closer to an ache in the structure, a load-bearing longing. A painting can carry it if the surface is honest enough to admit weight.
IV
Music · Process
A song and a painting are two elevations of the same building. One describes the façade, the other the section. I have stopped pretending they are separate disciplines.
V
Space · Faith
Teresa of Ávila described the soul as a castle of many rooms, made of a single diamond. I have been working inside that sentence for four years and have reached, at most, the third door.
The writing continues. New rooms are added as they are entered.