The Prickly Pear series

The prickly pear cactus has always intrigued me—not just for its resilience, but for the tension it holds between softness and danger. Its thick, paddle-shaped pads are often smooth and plump, yet studded with clusters of sharp spines. These spines are more than simple thorns; they're complex defense systems, often accompanied by tiny, hair-like glochids that easily attach to skin.

The plant adapts to harsh, dry environments by storing water, spreading slowly outward, and rooting wherever a pad touches soil. It's both stubborn and generous—tough on the outside, but capable of bearing fruit that is sweet, edible, and surprisingly delicate.

As a shape, the prickly pear is sculptural. Its repetitive, irregular geometry creates natural rhythms that I find visually magnetic. The pads branch in unexpected directions, often balancing asymmetry with a kind of accidental grace. They carry scars, layers of age, and the constant push of new growth. All of that speaks to a quiet, almost defiant perseverance—never showy, but deeply alive.

When used as the subject of a painting, the prickly pear becomes more than a plant. It’s a form that invites abstraction. It allows for bold compositions—flattened planes, sharp contours, rhythmic repetition. The light hits it in strange, satisfying ways. It casts shadows that feel architectural. And yet it remains organic, humble, slightly humorous even. It's a cactus, after all.

But beyond the formal qualities, I think it also represents something emotional: a kind of emotional armor, perhaps. The need to protect oneself while still growing, still blooming. It reminds me that beauty doesn’t always ask for attention. Sometimes it just exists quietly, defending itself from the world but also offering fruit.

This series is an exploration of those contradictions—between the soft and the spiked, the structured and the wild, the real and the imagined.

Learning To Stay

There’s a moment in painting when you know it’s not working. The colors feel off, the brushstrokes don’t click, the whole composition just refuses to come together.

And yet, you keep going, almost mechanically, hoping that when you step back, something will shift. That somehow, the painting will surprise you, offer you a way out. But no. It’s dead. Lifeless.

And that — right there — is the moment that matters most. Not the failure itself, but what you do with it. You could walk away, push it aside, start over. Or you could stay. Step into the mess, into the frustration, into the wreckage of what you thought would work, and keep going—not to fix it, not to force it into something beautiful, but to make it worth something. To see what’s still there.

The painting might not be saved. It might still be ugly as hell. But choosing to stay, to push through that discomfort, to resist the urge to discard and move on—that’s where the real work happens. That’s where something new is found.

And isn’t that life, too? When everything feels ruined, when every effort seems wasted—what do you do? Do you walk away, or do you stay just long enough to see what else might be hiding in the wreckage?

I guess that’s why painting feels so much like life. You go in with a plan, an idea of how things should be. And then, at some point, everything falls apart. The colors don’t work, the structure collapses, and nothing feels right. And in that moment, you have a choice—do you abandon it, or do you stay and see what else is possible? The answer to that question shapes not just a painting, but everything.

And when you stay, something shifts. Not necessarily in the painting, but in you. You stop trying to force it back into what you first imagined and start responding to what’s actually in front of you. You let go of control, of expectation, and you learn to work with what’s there instead of against it. That’s when things start to move, not because you willed them into place, but because you gave them the space to become something unexpected.

Maybe that’s all painting really is—learning to stay. Learning to see beyond the first idea, beyond the failure, and into whatever is waiting on the other side.

A New Shiny Bubble

The contemporary art world was supposed to break barriers—to move beyond the elitism of technical mastery and shift focus toward ideas. And for a moment, it did. But what was once about openness and pushing boundaries has now become another closed bubble. A scene where posturing often outweighs substance.

In all of this, I keep coming back to painting—not just as a medium, but as a process. The slow, difficult act of learning how to paint keeps an artist grounded. It demands patience, humility, and honesty. It’s not about chasing relevance but about sacrificing time to truly understand the craft.

Maybe this is what the art world is missing today: artists who create without expectation, who work without constantly seeking validation, who give themselves fully to their practice simply because they have no other choice. It’s a reflection of the larger world—where success and money seem to dictate everything, leaving little space for real ideas, real dreams.

But maybe, in the quiet corners of ourselves—where joy exists in the seemingly meaningless, in the act of creating for no reason other than the need to—there’s still hope for something different.