Company

Company was always a good word. It meant the door would open soon, that someone was coming over. My parents would tidy the house, move with purpose, their faces lighter.

Company meant a fuller room.

These paintings began in the opposite of that — in a time when the door stayed shut. Where I was once traveling and working on commissions, I found myself still, paging through photographs of strangers. Certain faces held me. Not because I knew them, but because I longed to. Their expressions carried something unspoken — a thought mid-formed, a weight mid-held.

One face became another, and another. The hours I spent painting them felt less like making and more like keeping each other company. No words exchanged — only the slow work of seeing. The kind of looking that leans toward understanding.

I believe the eyes became the quiet center of this collection. Soft yet insistent, each portrait holds its ground in thought. Together they form a roomful of individuals — tender, layered, vulnerable.

Each one its own presence.