There’s something about eyes in art that always pulls me in — not because they’re traditionally symbolic, but because they feel raw and honest. In my painting Sensibility, I chose to combine these all-seeing eyes with blooming petals, each one burning with reds, oranges, and pinks — not just as an aesthetic choice, but as a reflection of something deeply personal: the experience of emotional intensity in a world that often feels metallic and cold.
The petals aren’t just petals. They’re alive, fluid, flickering — like flames that don’t burn down but burn through. For me, that’s what inner awareness often feels like. It's not quiet or still; it's molten. It shifts constantly. And yet, on the outside, there’s often this pressure to look composed, minimal, even chrome-like. That’s why the background of this piece is rendered in a cold, polished, metallic bronze — to create tension, a friction between the inner emotional vitality and the external stillness we’re asked to maintain.
Sensibility is about that contradiction. The way you can be hyper-visible — people watching, reacting, consuming your emotions — and still feel completely unseen. Like you’ve shown your heart but it’s been read like a meme. These watchful, blooming eyes represent that strange surveillance we live under — both the way we see and are seen. I think about social media here a lot: we’re encouraged to be expressive, but only in certain formats. We are seen constantly, but not deeply. We are visible, but not understood.
At the same time, the painting reflects the internal state of being a sensitive person — the type who feels everything, even the things others skim past. Sometimes it feels like I’m holding this glowing, molten core of shifting emotion. It doesn’t always have a place to go. And that’s where art comes in — it becomes the place. The red and orange petals aren’t there to just be beautiful; they’re burning with the pressure of unspoken things. They’re emotion made form.
But even more than that, they’re about transformation. About how sometimes growth looks like combustion. About how the moments that feel like they might tear you apart often lead to a kind of inner clarity. Enlightenment isn’t always soft or glowing. Sometimes it scorches. Sometimes it’s a messy, chaotic, alive thing — like fire blooming out of steel.
I also think a lot about myth and folklore when I paint — not in a direct storytelling sense, but in that deeper symbolic way that fairy tales used to operate. Before there were psychology books or therapy, there were stories — fantastical, metaphorical, weird little tales that helped people process hard truths. In my art, I try to carry that tradition. Sensibility, for me, isn’t just about one emotion — it’s a visual tale about surviving emotional overwhelm, about watching and being watched, about the complexity of feeling too much in a world that celebrates numbness.
There’s also a strange hope in this piece. The petals are burning, yes — but they’re not destroyed. They live through the fire. They grow anyway. That’s how I see sensitivity, too. Not as weakness, but as resilience in a different form. A kind of honesty that doesn’t shut down. A flower that blooms with eyes because it sees more, not less.
