Where Do Ideas Come From?

What inspires you?

It's probably the second question artists are asked most often.

Ideas rarely arrive all at once. They accumulate instead. Like layers. From conversations, small moments of insight, casually spoken sentences, books, gestures, even from the way someone falls silent at the exact moment they should have spoken.

I enjoy reading psychology. One of the books I return to most often is Games People Play by Eric Berne, along with the works of Don Miguel Ruiz. I'm fascinated by what makes people respond the way they do. What fears, desires, or unmet needs lie beneath their decisions.

People often share deeply personal stories with me. Sometimes more than I expect. I would never paint those stories literally. I couldn't. It would betray the trust they've placed in me.

But every story leaves a trace. Sometimes it's nothing more than a small realization. A brief moment when I suddenly begin to recognize the same patterns beneath very different lives. We all react in our own ways, yet the forces that drive us are often remarkably similar. That's where the ideas for my next paintings are born.

The more I come to understand the people around me, the more I realize how alike we really are. We differ in the details, but beneath them, most of us long for the same things: to be accepted, to be loved, to belong, to be seen, to feel that we are enough.

Perhaps that's why my paintings rarely tell specific stories. Instead, they try to capture what lies beneath them. Not the event itself, but the force that drives it. Not a particular person, but a human pattern. I'm fascinated by the way an ordinary moment can reveal something universal about all of us.