Study no. 32

 In this painting, I was drawn not to the shell as a marine object, but to what it evokes: fragility, exposure, the ache of tenderness preserved in form.

The parted halves are suspended in white silence, as if the page itself were listening. There is vulnerability here—not in the object alone, but in the act of depiction. The shell, rendered in soft greys, violets, and pale blues, holds the ghost of something once living, once hidden. Its emptiness is not absence, but aftermath. A memory of protection. A body that once curled inside.

Color bleeds gently into the negative space, suggesting the echo of touch—the place where light has kissed curve, and time has worn edge. There is something intimate in this rendering, something just barely revealed. The shell becomes a stand-in for the self: closed when it needs to be, open when it dares.

This study was not executed as a representation, but as a release. It is a drawing of breath, of grief, of the quiet strength that sits in silence. I do not paint to illustrate—I paint to feel, to understand, to dissolve the boundary between the seen and the sensed. The result is this offering: a small rupture in the stillness, where emotion floats unguarded.

Study no. 32/ Pencils on paper/ 21 x 15 cm