The Ballerina

Behind the painting

The story of The Ballerina.

I began The Ballerina in August 2023, in a painting space that Kevin made for me when we started building our life together. I had been away from the canvas for years. She was the first painting I made after coming back to it.

My life was changing in ways I had wanted for a long time. Love, steadiness, a place to work. I was happy. I was also waiting for it to be taken away. I had learned that good things disappear, and even standing inside something wonderful, part of me was bracing for it to end.

That is what her body is doing. Her head thrown back, her weight turning away from you. She wants to surrender to the moment, and she is still asking whether it is real. She is not dancing out of pure joy, and she is not grieving. She lives somewhere between the two.

She is silver because silver is what the painting needed. I build the light first and let the shadow follow, and against the matte black the silver became her form, her movement, her presence. She is revealed only where the light touches her.

The original took about eighty hours across two years. I finished her in 2025.

If you have rebuilt your life, or lost something, or you are standing in a moment of happiness that feels almost too good to trust, I hope you find something of yourself in her. And if you know none of my story and simply see a woman in motion, that belongs to you too.

Acrylic on canvas · 24 × 24 inches · 2023–2025