"Portals in our minds let us slip through time. I am drawn to the things that flip hidden switches in us and shift our perception, even just for a moment. A scent, a piece of music, a taste, something that instantly carries us to another place. Whispers that pull back the curtains of the everyday, or hand us nostalgia’s rose-coloured glasses. I have been reflecting on our connection to this sensory travel, and pondering if it deepens as we begin to build our own nests, our own families.
More and more, I find myself caught by sudden pangs of memory: harvesting in mormor’s fruit garden, cooking meals from home, the sound of swallows, the scent of my mother’s washing powder lingering in a blanket. Seemingly ordinary objects become vessels of transport. In an instant, I am in Sweden and Australia at once, holding the past and present in a single breath.
Painting, for me, is another way of reaching through these portals, small openings into elsewhere, where I can savour and linger in these moments. A way of holding onto what slips, and honouring what stays."
