Where Water, Air, and Art Meet
As an artist, I often find myself drawn to what lies between: between forms, between states, between definitions. These liminal spaces — where water becomes mist, where air sculpts clouds — are where I feel most creatively and philosophically at home. They offer not just aesthetic inspiration, but a reflection of how we experience life itself: ever-shifting, never entirely fixed.
In my paintings, I’m drawn to thresholds—those spaces where one thing dissolves into another, like mist rising from water or clouds sculpted by wind. These liminal states fascinate me because they are fragile, fleeting, and open-ended—just like our emotions, thoughts, and transitions in life.
Eastern and Western traditions have long found meaning in these formless spaces. In Chinese aesthetics, water represents adaptability and flow: it yields yet shapes landscapes over time. Air is equally symbolic in both traditions, associated with breath, spirit, and freedom—a kind of invisible movement that connects all things. In Western Romanticism, clouds and waves often express the sublime, a dynamic interplay between beauty and impermanence.
Why are we drawn to these states? My background in cognitive neuroscience gives me a lens through which to understand this attraction. Our brains are wired to search for patterns, yet they also find comfort in ambiguity: the undefined invites curiosity and deeper reflection. The sensation of becoming—neither fixed nor concluded—mirrors our own evolving identities.
When I paint, this becomes an embodied exploration. Water and air don’t resist transformation; they are transformation. By working with water, sand, and flowing textures, I’m trying to create a space where the viewer can feel those undefined limits—where stillness and motion coexist and where form emerges, dissolves, and re-emerges.
These liminal states are where both art and life thrive. They remind us that in-between places hold the most potential—for change, for growth, for discovery. My hope is that my paintings help viewers pause and feel the beauty of transitions, both in nature and in themselves.