a flower is life
a seed is life
which came first, I cannot say –
yet within the flow and cycle of life
each exists
just as it is
 
 
Toward the end of 2022, I was suddenly moved to paint flowers. It didn't matter whether they were real flowers or flowers from my imagination — either would do. I wanted to paint whatever flower called to me, following my heart wherever it led, and render each one in the manner of a specimen. Not as painterly expression, but as if from a field guide.
 
Once I began, I found myself naturally drawn to the flowers blooming at roadsides, to those peeking out from gaps in walls. Through a loupe, a mysterious microcosm opens up. I was simply astonished by the intricacy of their forms. Nature is transient, and at the same time, resilient. I found myself feeling this anew.
 
After a while, though I was painting flowers, I began to feel as though I were painting people. Looking at them again, they did indeed resemble portraits. A withering flower held a presence — tinged with loneliness, yet with the quiet gravity of an elder that only that moment could bring forth. At times I found myself nostalgic for my own youth, or a particular person would come to mind unbidden.
 
Flowers are people. People are flowers.
Perhaps I was borrowing the form of flowers to paint different lives, different ways of being.
　
After a hundred flowers in a hundred variations were complete, I thought next to paint seeds.
That felt inevitable. For seeds are the source of life.
 
And so the cycle continues.