A Kind of Seeing

Sometimes the moments that stay with us are the smallest ones. A whisper of sound, a slice of light, a gesture we barely notice until later, and then it keeps coming back. I began the series A Kind of Seeing to trace those tiny fragments of life that linger in memory. To paint them is my way of staying with them a little longer, of listening to what they might tell me.

Painting as Memory and Perception

For me, painting is less about replicating what happened and more about attending to how it felt. I don’t set out to reproduce a photograph or create a polished scene. Memory is never that orderly. I usually begin with something modest like a soft shape of light touching a wall, a tone that shifts in the evening air, a chair left empty beside a window. From there the painting opens up. Color, brushwork, and gesture gradually carry the weight of the experience, as if the canvas itself were remembering alongside me.

While working on the series I found deep resonance with Maurice Merleau‑Ponty’s Eye and Mind. He wrote that seeing is not just a matter of looking. It is a bodily engagement with the world. The world does not sit apart from us; we are part of it. A gaze gathers a world; the body orients the gaze; the world converses back. For me this means that painting needn’t burden itself with perfect mimicry. It can reflect how something is known rather than only how it appears. That subtle shift feels vital. I try to paint from inside the moment, not from some detached viewpoint. The result is not a clear record of time but a memory of perception: of being present, watching, breathing.

Traces of Presence

A good painting, in my view, feels alive. Not because it records every detail but because it carries traces of presence. The tilt of the brush, the uneven edge of a shadow, the hesitation built into a stroke, these are gestures of being there. Each piece in A Kind of Seeing begins with a thought or memory: “the blue of evening,” “someone waiting,” “the sound of empty chairs in a room.” Some works are quiet, almost still. Others hum with motion. But each shares a single intention: to hold the fleeting.

Working through the series taught me to notice what I previously ignored. The soft edges of experience. The pause between sounds. The color shift that happens when the door opens and daylight moves in. Painting offered a kind of language for these moments. The brush has its grammar: shape, rhythm, weight, gesture and response. Often I don’t know where a painting will go when I begin. I trust the process and allow what I notice, even accidentally, to guide me.

Patience, Attention, and the Ordinary

Memory and perception intertwine in this work. Even when I start with a scene observed that morning, I find myself drawing in other memories: the scent of rain on pavement, the color of twilight sky after the streetlights click on. These echoes nestle under the surface of the painting. The result is not a single snapshot but a layered presence. A condensation of perception, memory, and attention.

There is a kind of gentle magic in this practice. The smallest, most ordinary moments become the ones I paint. A chair, a window, the edge of a curtain drifting in afternoon breeze. By painting them I slow the moment enough to listen. In oil paint, time is malleable. Layers carry that slow accumulation of seeing. And traces of myself are embedded: the reach, the tilt, the reworked corner. Even the “mistakes” hold meaning. They are the record of attending.

Patience and kindness to the subject became as important as skill. To see well, one must slow down. I learned that some paintings begin with a quick gesture, but most require hours of looking, layering, returning. The quiet ones sometimes take longest. In one work the light shift between the painted hours was so subtle I almost abandoned it, but staying on it revealed a depth I didn’t anticipate. The painting held a gentle tension, a quiet presence.

Invitation to Recognize

The variety of works in the series reflects that process. Some are reduced, nearly minimal. A wash of evening blue, a shaft of light, a darkened window. Others are denser, involving the hum of city light or the texture of a night interior. Some verge on abstraction; others retain just enough figurative detail to hold ground. What unites them is attention, curiosity about seeing, and the willingness to stay.

In the end, A Kind of Seeing is not about what is in front of us. It is about how we meet the world and the kind of gentleness, curiosity, and patience that seeing demands. If someone stands in front of one of these paintings and is reminded of a moment in their own life, even faintly, then the work has succeeded. Because painting, ultimately, is about recognition: recognizing ourselves in the act of seeing, if only for a moment.

This work has taught me that painting is less about control than engagement. The brush is a tool, but the subject and perception guide it. This world is never static. The paint responds accordingly. Every tilt, every pause, every layer is part of the dialogue between me and the world. The act of painting becomes inseparable from the act of seeing, from the accumulation of moments, memory, and reflection.

My hope is that when viewers approach this series they slow down too. They notice the edge of a shadow, the subtlest pulse of color, the suggestion of sound. They feel the kind of presence the work holds. A Kind of Seeing is my invitation to that. The goal is not to impress but to invite recognition. If you find yourself in one of these paintings, even fleetingly, then I have done my job. Because that recognition is the quiet, unspoken dialogue at the heart of all art: the shared moment of seeing, remembering, and feeling.