The Smoulder series grew out of an interest in exploring a quieter, more elemental side of my practice. It draws on an early memory—staining paper with teabags as a child, trying to make pages feel older, handled, lived in.

I wanted to create work that carries a sense of having passed through fire and time, while still holding something alive within it. The approach is largely aesthetic, but that feels honest. Art doesn’t always need to announce meaning to be meaningful; sometimes its value lies simply in how it exists, how it feels to look at.