Recognition, chapter 25 from The Works

By 2011, something had quietly shifted.

For many years I had searched for images.

Gradually, I found myself searching for something else.

I could not yet name it.

The line had become independent.It no longer described objects.It revealed relationships.

My paintings became quieter.Forms were reduced.Colour was no longer there to imitate the visible world,but to create a space in which the image could breathe.

Around that time I discovered The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

What fascinated me was not warfare.

It was another way of looking.

The Chinese texts entered my paintings, not as illustrations, but as companions.

I had no idea then that this encounter would stay with me for years.

Nor did I know that it would eventually lead me towards Chinese painting, calligraphy, tea, philosophy and, much later, to China itself.

At the time, it was simply one more step.

One more question.

One more path opening.

In 2013, art historian Gary Schwarz opened one of my exhibitions. He spoke about the way my work returned, again and again, to the same gesture—as if repetition itself was creating a sense of wholeness.

I appreciated his words.

Only much later did I begin to understand what he had seen.

Looking back, I realise I was no longer searching for another image.

I was searching for something I could not yet describe.