Hope

What can we rely on when life crumbles on every important dimension we know? When we lose our jobs, our health, our relationships, when our very soul feels tormented. There seems to be no end to it, no light at the end of the tunnel. At exactly these deep points in life, there is one thing we can’t give up. It is not given; it has to be protected like a tiny flame of candlelight in the storm. If it goes out, we have to rekindle it, no matter how hard it feels in the pitch-black darkness.

My painting “Hope” was born after one of the greatest pains of my life. What started as a simple landscape became a year-long processing of trauma. Layer by layer, I shed and repainted my reality, alchemising the darkness inside me into gold. Real hope is tested in our darkest moments, when we refuse to give in to entropy, even through the smallest acts. That is what leads us to this Eden illuminated by our greatest treasure: hope.