eliweb.art
Veils and Mists, 2025. Oil and acrylic on wood board, 94 x 46 in.
Transparency, 2025. Oil on wood board, 24 x 24 in.
Half-Tide, Gold Star, 2025. Oil on plastered canvas, 24 x 32 in.
I notice it during low tide when I cross the causeway to visit my family in
the summers and on holidays. The ocean is somewhere between a
boundary and a bridge for me; it captures an endless state of movement
while retaining a stagnant nostalgia I can’t seem to escape.
This place is both familiar and foreboding or at least quiet. Painting gives
me a moment of clarity, a way to imagine myself organized by color and
space, though I hope to dismantle those formalist elements over time.
Though I often paint with oils, I crave the way water is absorbed and
stains after evaporation— a medium that moves and breathes. Sometimes,
the paint becomes a creator on its own, shifting my role from artist to
conductor, guiding the flow of pigment rather than controlling it. It’s
difficult for me to slow down and quiet my perfectionism rather than
feeling pulled in many directions and inadequate. I often feel more
comfortable with limited color flexibility and fluid compositions to avoid
the vast expanse of creative decision making. But I now understand what
it means to cross the barrier between technical skill and subconscious
imagination.
It takes patience.
The moon that pulls the tides does not know she is eroding the shore’s
cliffs. After all, it is not she who smooths out the coasts for thousands of
years but the waves that ebb and flow beneath her gaze.