Notes on Essence

On mind, body, and soul

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I’ve learned that I work best in series. Not because I’m methodical, quite the opposite. I’m easily distracted, curious about too many things at once, constantly moving between ideas. Working in series helps me stay focused while still allowing my mind to move around. Different thoughts can exist, as long as they live under the same umbrella and speak to each other instead of pulling in opposite directions.

Last November, I knew I wanted to start a new series, but I didn’t know what it should be about. What I did know was that I’d been quietly obsessed with something since the summer: a spiritual dimension of myself I hadn’t really acknowledged before. I’d never considered myself a spiritual person. For a long time, I confused spirituality with religion, and because of that, I never went there. What I’ve come to understand is that spirituality, at least for me, has nothing to do with belief systems. It’s about turning inward. About observing how and why I do things. About reflection.

That’s where Essence began. From the idea that, stripped down to the basics, we are made of three parts: mind, body, and soul. As a society, we tend to take care of the first two, sometimes well, sometimes not, but the third is often ignored. And yet, when one of these parts is neglected, something always feels slightly off.

When I talk about soul, I’m not talking about something abstract or distant. For me, it’s deeply connected to mental health. Taking care of the mind isn’t just about managing thoughts, it’s about tending to what sits underneath them. Our feelings, our self-beliefs, our sense of worth, the way we relate to others, and the systems we move within every day, all of that belongs to what I understand as soul.

It’s also the most personal part of the three. Something internal, quiet, and entirely ours. No one else can really take care of it for us. It requires attention, reflection, and a certain honesty: noticing how we move through the world, and why we do what we do. This understanding is what pushed me to approach mind, body, and soul through abstraction. I didn’t want to only illustrate them. I also wanted to interpret them, to give each part a visual language rather than a definition.

For Soul's figurative piece, I chose an image of ballerinas. Not because of dance itself, but because of what it represents for me. Soul is closely linked to feeling. To the things we do not because they’re useful or productive, but because we love doing them. The acts that feel like they belong to us.

When I talk about creativity, I don’t mean only artistic practices. Painting, dancing, writing, yes, but also working with numbers, building systems, researching, thinking. Creativity exists wherever someone feels aligned with what they’re doing. It’s the activity that nourishes the soul, whatever form it takes. That’s why this image felt right: movement, presence, and a body responding to something internal rather than external expectations.

Body was the part I was most excited to work on. I’ve always wanted to paint women’s bodies, and this felt like the right context to finally do it. I loved the process of exploring different shapes, weights, postures, presences. I’m sure many bodies are still missing, but these were the ones that appeared through my hands.

I wanted to paint them because they are beautiful. Because the body is what makes us physical beings. It’s not secondary or superficial. It’s fundamental. It’s how we exist in the world.

For Mind, I felt naturally drawn to the head. I love portraits, and this became a way of returning to them. I started painting two heads, and I grew especially attached to them. One of them, however, remains unfinished.

I was in the middle of the process when something in my life broke, and I couldn’t continue for some time.

That painting is still waiting. I don’t know yet when I’ll finish it. Maybe next week, maybe later. But I want to. I believe in this structure, in this theory, in this way of holding mind, body, and soul together. Even when life interrupts the work, the work remains.

Each figurative painting in Essence is accompanied by two abstract pieces. One of them uses a process I return to often: cutting the canvas into thin strips and intertwining them, almost like braiding. I love this gesture. For me, it’s a physical way of saying everything is connected. Mind, body, and soul are separate, but they are also deeply together, constantly crossing, influencing, holding each other together.

The second abstract work changes depending on the part it represents. For Body, I worked with lines and marks that echo skin, scars, and physical memory, using a palette that feels grounded and corporeal. For Mind, I turned to pasting, layering, and handwritten text, treating the canvas as something to be assembled, constructed. And for Soul, I allowed water and fluidity to lead the process. Soft, almost cellular forms emerged. Big forms of the nearly invisible cellules.

Essence is about attention. About noticing where balance is missing, and what happens when we try to hold the whole instead of just parts. Mind, body, and soul don’t need to be perfected, just acknowledged, listened to, and kept in conversation.