The last few weeks in the studio I nearly restarted a painting three times.

That isn’t dramatic exaggeration. It’s simply the truth of what happens when you stop performing and start searching.

I began with symbols — figures, creatures, mythic structures, tunnels, spirits. The canvas filled quickly. There was narrative, atmosphere, ambition. It looked “interesting.” It felt active.

But something was wrong.

Not technically wrong. Existentially wrong.

The more I added, the more I could hear my inner commentator. The voice that analyses, compares, evaluates. The voice trained by years of business, leadership, and more recently, academic realism. It knows proportion, value, finish. It wants coherence. It wants authority. It wants to prove.

That voice is useful.

It is not my centre.

As the weeks progressed, I began removing elements. First the creature. Then the figures. Then the colour. Eventually I was left with a dark field and a single chair within the structure of a cross.

The moment I stripped it back, something shifted.

It felt more honest.