It sounds strange maybe, but before that, I was so deep in survival mode, that I could never really let myself feel the weight that I was carrying with me. But when the space finally came, the cracks started to show, and there was no way back.

It all came crashing in. The depression I had been suppressing all those years. A heaviness I could no longer outrun. Big emotions and big questions. And I had no means to move through them. I remember the conscious decision to let myself fall. Because somehow I already knew, that if I wouldn't, I would always be living a kind of "half-life". 

I stopped pretending I was okay. I took a break. I let myself sit at home and want nothing. Just to see what was there. I stopped trying to keep everything together and to just be in it, however ugly or heavy it felt.

And in that space, painting found me. I didn't plan it. I didn't study it. I had already loved being creative, but I had never just painted without any reference. I had no idea what I was doing. I just felt this overwhelming urge to get a canvas, grab paint, and start. It was as if I could feel the motion that my hands wanted to make before I was actually doing it.

Words weren't enough anymore. I couldn't think my way out of this. But I had to find a way to let out the emotions and energy. Painting changed everything for me. 

Painting became a way to move with what was inside me. A way to let things out without having to understand them first. I could just express myself. Give the emotions a color, a movement, an intensity. Even though I didn't know it back then. This was me making space for everything that had been suppressed for years.

It was not intellectual. Not structured. It was raw, messy and more honest than I had ever been.

And what's interesting is that pretty much all of my first paintings started in the same way: Black. I always had to start with black. It was like all the darkness needed somewhere to go, and the canvas became the place for it. But also, every single time, there would be a point where I felt like the black was done. Like something had shifted, and I had reached the end of that layer. And without forcing it, I would suddenly be drawn to paint bright colors.

At the time, I didn't think much of it. I was just following my intuition and the occassional visions and symbols that would pop up. But later - months, maybe even years - I started to understand what had happened there. Because, some of those paintings are still with me, and are some of my favourites. They carry so much truth, and have always symbolized hope. Like a quiet inner knowing that something better was waiting for me sometime, somewhere, if I would just keep going. They carried more truth than I could imagine back then. What I realized is this: How could I paint hope if hope wasn't already somewhere in me? How could I have painted aliveness, joy, possibility - if somewhere in me I didn't already know what aliveness was.