May 2025

Poolside

Okay so – I wanted to paint a quiet pool scene, but with a woman in it who is very clearly unbothered.

This is right after work ends. Sun, water, nobody around – and yes, she kept the heels on. I keep going back and forth on whether that was an accident or a decision. It was a decision. It’s always a decision.

The Mediterranean light does most of the work here, honestly – I just let it happen instead of trying to control it. Nothing staged, nothing fixed. This is what she looks like when the day is actually, finally, gloriously over.

I kept the palette simple on purpose – mostly blue, everything else quiet – because a moment this good doesn’t need help.

This is the painting people tell me they’d hang somewhere they go to exhale. Same. Genuinely, same.

Small confession: this one’s based on an actual pool, an actual pair of heels I refused to take off, and a text I never should have sent while I was still in the water. Where it happened stays with me. A girl needs one or two secrets.

Poolside has found its home.