The Shape of Belonging.
What This Collection Is Holding
This collection began in a place that isn’t mine by origin — Norway, where my partner’s family lives — but it felt like home in a way I didn’t expect, and still can’t quite explain. We were there for a white Christmas, my first, surrounded by snow-soft days and people I’ve come to love deeply. These paintings hold onto the quiet moments that linger: the warmth of being gathered after too long apart, the stillness of a hidden house on the fjord, the quiet pull of a cathedral I’d never seen before but somehow already knew.
They’re not about recreating a place. They’re about something deeper — the feeling of being welcomed into someone else’s world, of walking alongside a path that’s not your own, and feeling, somehow, at home there too. They’re about joy that belongs to others, and how beautiful it is to witness. About distance, and closeness, and the soft, surprising shape that belonging sometimes takes.
The Colour the Heart Remembers
Each piece in The Shape of Belonging is painted in a single colour, explored through quiet variations of shade and depth. This choice wasn’t just visual — it was emotional. Like the way some memories return not in full detail but in feeling, or how some dreams surface in black and white, these works lean into the essence rather than the specifics. A certain kind of remembering lives here — not literal, not exact, but true in its own way. By limiting the palette, I’ve tried to stay close to what mattered most in each moment: the shape of the emotion, the texture of presence, the way belonging sometimes arrives not with clarity, but with a quiet sense that this is where I’m meant to be.
‘Somewhere Known’
We stayed just a few minutes from the centre of Oslo, spending our first white Christmas wandering snow-dusted streets and sharing slow, quiet days with family. Almost every day, I passed this cathedral — tall, still, and softly lit against the winter sky.
I never went inside, though the doors were open. I didn’t need to. Something about the outside held me. I’m not religious, but this place… it pulled at something deeper.
And maybe that’s what this painting holds. Not the building itself, but what it quietly came to mean: presence, grounding, and a moment of unexpected belonging.
There’s more to the story — more to what stayed with me.
You’ll find the rest waiting for you, just below.
‘The Paths We Found’
This piece began with a quiet house on the edge of a fjord — still, snow-covered, and full of feeling. But really, it’s about more than that. It’s about finding peace in where you’ve landed, and the quiet joy of watching someone you love do the same. It’s about following your own path, even when it leads far from where you began — and the deep gratitude of being invited into someone else’s, just for a moment.
I didn’t paint it to match the scene exactly, but to hold what it felt like — the hush of snow, the strength in stillness, the emotion layered into every shape and shadow.
There’s more to this moment — if you’d like to linger a little longer.
‘The Warmth Behind The Walls’
We walked through falling snow to a quiet hillside town outside Oslo, where time feels layered and still. There, a simple house painted in deep Falu red stood wrapped in soft snow — it wasn’t grand or flashy, but it held a deep sense of warmth and belonging, steady and full of stories whispered in the hush of winter. It wasn’t just a place, but a gathering point for connection and home. This painting holds that quiet invitation — the gentle pause where home isn’t just a place, but the feeling of being seen and welcomed without words.
There are layers beneath this moment, waiting for you to uncover.
