COMING BACK, LEAVING AND COMING BACK AGAIN
A solo exhibition at 99 Loop Gallery
Cape Town, South Africa
March 2025
Coming Back, Leaving and Coming Back Again
This series of watercolour and ink drawings explores the spaces we pass through—places that are not final destinations, not designed to be seen but rather experienced or used. These include art studios, workshops, airports, alleyways, hospitals, and even homes when no visitor is expected.
The visual language of Coming Back, Leaving and Coming Back Again is inspired by the backgrounds of graphic novels and film settings—spaces that serve as vessels for narrative content. When empty, they are at rest.
The first seven pieces in the series were completed during a ceramics residency in Meteora, Greece, celebrating the unintentional beauty of active, functional spaces—filled with uncurated still lifes and unchoreographed movement. Many of the other works were created on-site in the UK and South Africa, while some are based on photographic reference, reflecting the difference between direct observation and the act of looking back, memorializing.
In this way, the series also traces the artist’s relocation from London to South Africa. Moving disrupts and scatters belongings, creating a temporary chaos that, through both painting and lived experience, slowly settles into order. The process of making—both in art and in life—becomes an act of filtering, arranging, and finding a sense of place. In the desire to preserve, there is an underlying nostalgia—an acceptance that we move on, find ourselves elsewhere, and are left with only an approximate memory as a souvenir.
