Shimmer
Explores the challenge of making a flat surface shimmer. Inspired by the shifting light of late winter and early spring.
Snowlight · Snowdusk · Jan 17th · Fade · Glow · Purple Sunset · The Day Before Spring (Sunrise) · The Day Before Spring (Sunset)
About this collection
Making a flat surface shimmer
The Shimmer collection began with a challenge: how do I make a flat surface shimmer? I worked flecks of contrasting colour into every X shape to bring that shimmer to life.
The study of light
Every piece explores how light moves across the pattern, built up unevenly so the surface catches and releases light differently depending on where you're standing. Move around a painting, look at it from another angle, and the pattern shifts with you - it's never quite the same painting twice.
Inspired by early spring and late winter
The colours and rhythms in this collection come from that specific stretch of the year - late winter easing into early spring. The sun sits a little higher, the days stretch longer, and the light turns warmer even while snow is still on the ground.
Why shimmer
Snow itself carries its own shimmer, catching and scattering light in a way that shaped how I built up texture across every piece. Shimmer makes your eye for a second, forces it to analyze.
Snowlight
140cm x 120cm (55.1in x 47.2in) · Shimmer
Snowdusk
30cm x 30cm (11.8in x 11.8in) · Shimmer
Jan 17th
160cm x 100cm (63.0in x 39.4in) · Shimmer
Fade
30cm x 30cm (11.8in x 11.8in) · Shimmer
Glow
30cm x 30cm (11.8in x 11.8in) · Shimmer
Purple Sunset
140cm x 140cm (55.1in x 55.1in) · Shimmer
The Day Before Spring (Sunrise)
60cm x 60cm (23.6in x 23.6in) · Shimmer
The Day Before Spring (Sunset)
60cm x 60cm (23.6in x 23.6in) · Shimmer
Inspired by cross-stitching
My grandma
Cross-stitching goes back to my childhood. Every summer break, I'd travel to the coast with my grandma, and while other kids were playing volleyball or swimming in the sea, I'd sit on the beach cross-stitching new patterns.
The X shape
That's where the love for the X shape started, and it's stayed with me ever since - it's still the shape almost everything I paint comes back to. It's a perfectly balances and such a universal shape for creativity.
Handmade
Cross-stitch has a particular bulkiness to it - the thread sits on top of the fabric rather than flat against it, building up a texture you can feel as much as see. It never lies quite the same way twice, catching and releasing light differently with every stitch.
Repetition
There's something meditative about that repetition too - the same small motion, over and over, until a pattern slowly emerges. I've carried all of that into painting: building up texture by hand, shape by shape, so the surface catches light the way stitched thread always did.
Why always 8 paintings
My lucky number
Since I was a kid I had this unusual love to the number 8 - I'd add it to nicknames, passwords, anything that let me sneak it in. I've also been fascinated by octopuses my whole life, and they also happen to have eight tentacles - it all just adds up.
A finished story
In every collection I make, I place exactly eight paintings. It feels like a finished story, like a whole experience that I provide with a collection. Eight is enough space to tell that story fully, without ever feeling rushed or padded out.
Making of this collection
