Play.
from Old English plegan, plegian "move lightly and quickly, occupy or busy oneself, amuse oneself; engage in active exercise; frolic; engage in children's play; make sport of, mock; perform music," related to Middle Dutch pleien ‘leap for joy, dance’.
I love the struggle of hiking. I believe it is a great metaphor for life. We all want to see the view from the top, but unfortunately we are not always ready to climb. Previously my landscape series were focusing on just that - the view from the top. Now I’m stepping back and showing the beauty of the journey.
I think we all have our own paths in life and when we try to compare our own to someone else’s it will always look different, but the direction we all want to go is one and the same.
A life full of love, understanding, connection and abundance - I think this is what we are all trying to create. And to get there we need to grow, to challenge the way we perceive the world and keep pushing up. The view is just around the corner.
I believe you have to do everything today so you get to live a better tomorrow. So, what should come to your heart when you see the grasses in my paintings is the growth and expansion in everything you do. Never let anything negative affect your progress. Nothing should stop you from imagining your brightest future.
…and still I understand how hard it is to keep pushing when you doubt yourself.
This is why I decided to make this series, to remind us that growth comes through challenges, that growth comes in the moments when no one’s watching. That growth is an essential part of being human.
This is an omen to those moments, when we feel like we cannot keep going forward, but often what we need is just a change of mindset, because the view, as I said, is just around the corner.
*all large works from this series are still in the making
