It all started with chemical-smelling watercolours.
My first memory of making art, of being creative, of enjoying painting.

In this memory I’m really young, maybe 6 or 7, and at my grandmother’s house. I used to spend a lot of time there.

She had bought me watercolours, a blue plastic case with maybe 8 or 10 colours and a brush. They had a powerful chemical smell and I spent entire days painting, sitting at the massive (in a child’s eyes) wooden desk in my room.

A few years ago I found out my mum still has a collection of my masterpieces, thanks probably to my grandmother who has kept them for 3 decades.

I really liked them. I like the memory of my happiness, the imaginarium of a little girl, the thrill of creation. The first experiences with flow, with being in contact with a part of yourself you otherwise can’t access, with picturing something in my mind and watching my hand make it appear.

The wonder of representation, the hours and days spent drawing trees, the hours and days spent observing the trees and leaves on them and their movement in the wind, to figure out how to paint them.

That’s where it began.