This piece immediately felt cardiac to me. Uneven. Agitated. Like a heartbeat trying to regulate itself and failing.

The reds pulse against softer passages that almost disappear underneath the darker marks. Some areas feel frantic. Others feel numb. That tension stayed the entire time I was painting it, like the body wanting rest while the nervous system refuses to cooperate.

There’s something in this piece that feels both medical and emotional to me. Maybe that comes from my background in critical care. Maybe it’s just what grief and overload actually feel like in the body.

I left the marks raw on purpose. I wanted the painting to feel disrupted, interrupted, unresolved, because some seasons of life are exactly that. Not clean. Not healed. Just human.

No. 6 of the Studio Study Series.