What the Body Knows

I painted this at a time when I couldn’t explain what I was feeling, but my body already knew.  I’ve learned that my body often knows things long before my mind is ready to catch up.  It knows before I have words.  Before I’ve made sense of anything.  Before I’ve decided what I should feel.

For a long time, I didn’t trust that. I trusted logic. Schedules. Forward motion. But grief has a way of rearranging the hierarchy.

When I paint, I’m not trying to tell a story in the traditional sense. I’m responding.  Letting color, gesture, and shape speak where words feel too sharp or too neat. The figures that emerge aren’t portraits. They’re postures. They’re moments of knowing without explanation.

There’s something deeply human about that.

We live in a culture that rewards composure and clarity, yet so much of real life happens in the in-between—before clarity, before resolution. The body lives there comfortably. It doesn’t rush. It doesn’t need a conclusion. It just keeps noticing.  If you’re someone who feels things deeply—sometimes before you understand them—you’re not imagining it. Your body is wise. It’s been paying attention all along.

And maybe the work, for all of us, is simply to listen.