Every work begins with a question, not an answer.

People often ask if I sketch everything beforehand or if I know what the final piece will look like. The answer is that I don't. I usually start with an intention—a direction rather than a destination—but very quickly the work begins to speak back.

This conversation is the most important part of my practice.

I spent much of my life in research, where progress depends on observation. You form a hypothesis, test it, analyse the results, and allow the evidence to guide the next step. Although making art belongs to a completely different world, I feel that the mindset is surprisingly similar. I observe, I respond, and I let each decision influence the next. The difference is that there is no correct outcome to discover.

In the studio, I rarely think in terms of composition alone. I pay close attention to how materials behave. A line might demand another line. A torn piece of canvas might ask to remain visible instead of being repaired. A piece of textile may introduce a new tension. A wire might suggest a movement into space. A layer of charcoal can soften an area that feels too controlled. Sometimes a gesture creates an unexpected balance. Other times it reveals that everything needs to change.

The work tells me its direction—and when I am forcing it.

There are moments when I spend hours carefully constructing a surface or a form, only to change much of it minutes later. Not because it failed, but because it had already given me the information I needed. The traces remain, quietly shaping what comes afterwards. I almost never see these moments as mistakes. They are part of the thinking process, even when they become invisible.

This is why many of my works contain visible interruptions: stitched threads, erased marks, fragments of textile, layers that refuse to fully hide one another, or sculptural elements that shift the work beyond a flat surface. They are evidence that the work has lived through uncertainty. Rather than presenting a perfect object, they reveal the path it has taken to become itself.

Over time, I have learned that the most meaningful moments happen when I stop trying to control every outcome. Intuition is not the opposite of discipline; it grows from experience. The more time I spend making, the more I trust my ability to recognise when something feels alive, even if I cannot immediately explain why.

For me, making art is less about expressing an idea than discovering one.

Each work teaches me something I didn't know when I began. Sometimes it changes the direction of an entire series. Sometimes it asks a question that will only be answered months later. In that sense, every finished piece is also the beginning of the next one.

Perhaps that is why I never feel that a work is simply an object to be looked at. It is a record of a dialogue—between intention and instinct, structure and freedom, myself and the material.

And that conversation does not end when I step away from the studio. It continues through contemplation, each encounter revealing something I hadn't noticed before. In many ways, the work keeps evolving long after I have stopped making it.