Studio Diaries
Stories from behind the canvas
Studio Diaries offers a glimpse into the thoughts, experiments and moments that shape my work, from the first spark of an idea to the unexpected directions a painting can take.
These writings are not explanations, but companions to the work.
When an Image Wouldn’t Leave Me
The Cry That Remained · September 2026
A photograph of a young girl crying in a war zone stayed with me. I couldn't change what I had seen, but I could respond in the way I know, through art.
I began creating this mixed-media collage using torn newspaper, fragments of words, layers of paint, texture and marks. I didn't have a carefully planned composition. I simply started working and allowed the layers to build around her.
As I worked, her face became the quiet centre amongst all that movement.
I wasn't trying to reproduce the photograph perfectly. The painting became my response to seeing a child caught in circumstances no child should have to understand.
Sometimes I paint because I have an idea. Sometimes I paint because an image touches me so deeply that I simply need somewhere to put the feeling.
This was one of those times.
A photograph of a young girl walking barefoot through destruction, carrying heavy water containers, stayed with me. This painting grew from that image and from the question of what children are asked to carry when childhood is interrupted.
A photograph of a young girl crying in a war zone stayed with me. I couldn't change what I had seen, but I could respond in the way I know, through art.
While waiting for my next flight to Jordan, I opened my sketchbook and experimented with water-soluble oil pastels for the first time. What emerged was not Petra itself, but a memory of Petra.
Fragments of calligraphy, hidden pathways, excavation-like textures, and imagined desert memories come together in the evolving work, Dream of Petra.
Not every studio day involves painting. Today looked more like systems, packaging, certificates, product testing, and building the infrastructure behind an art practice.
A look behind the scenes of building an art practice, from painting and photography to website updates, collection refinement, and the quiet work of creative growth.
Lately, I felt drawn to experiment beyond my usual style, and Portal Horse and Golden Script emerged through that process. While both works move further into abstraction, they still carry the visual language that keeps returning in my practice — desert landscapes, storm energy, Wadi Rum, Petra, and the symbolic presence of the horse.
Even in these more intuitive, layered compositions, the horse remains deeply connected to Petra and the desert for me. These paintings feel like a shift, but not a departure — more like another way of speaking through the same inner landscape.
Both pieces were guided by instinct, mixed media, and the freedom to let meaning appear gradually. What emerged was movement, mystery, and a sense of becoming — shaped by memory, place, and the force of storm.
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Studio Note — Carried by the Wind
Of all the works in Held by the Desert, this Wadi Rum inspired abstract painting resisted me the most. What began as a sandstorm study became a meditation on resilience, movement and endurance — until the camel emerged through the layers almost like memory.
Some paths don’t appear until you start walking.
Mystical Pathways reflects moments of passage — where direction is felt before it is fully seen.
Four paintings, one continuing story. Childhood Interrupted explores the experiences of children affected by conflict, and my journey as an artist learning to express stories that refuse to leave me.