SANCTUARY
Sanctuary is an exploration of transformation through the language of nature. Inspired by a personal essay of the same name, the series expands on a question my father often asks me—“Do you go to church?”—reimagining what it means to seek the sacred, not through institutions, but through presence. These works follow a journey in which faith is not framed as belief, but as attention, connection, and the quiet act of noticing what is already alive around us.
Opulence (Spring), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 35 x 27 cm
The image below, photographed in Toronto’s Earlscourt Park, marks the moment I first became conscious of nature’s quiet teachings.
Higher Conciousness (Winter), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 cm
The photographs that follow, taken throughout Amsterdam’s Park Frankendael, continue this rhythm of renewal. It is there, among the trees and shifting light, that I found my own kind of church: a sanctuary without walls, where the sacred feels near and the act of seeing becomes prayer. The early works are washed in deep indigo and violet, echoing the stillness of winter and the liminal space between endings and beginnings.
Mothers Watch (Winter), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 cm
Winter’s Bone (Winter), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 cm
MY SOLITUDE OFFERS ME THE CHANCE TO NOTICE THE CIRCLE OF LIFE AND THE KNOWING THAT IF TREES CAN DIE, SURVIVE, AND BLOOM ONCE AGAIN, THEN SO CAN I. ONLY THEY ARE PRESENT TO WITNESS MY TEARS.
Restructuring (Spring), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 cm
As the series unfolds, soft pinks and luminous yellows appear, hinting at warmth returning and the quiet pulse of renewal.
Dust In The Wind (Spring), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 35 x 27 cm
Ascension (Spring), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 35 x 27 cm
By summer, the palette shifts into contrast rather than brightness: dense shadows and near-blacks hold the composition, while marigold flowers and faint lavender highlights flare against the darkness.
Flounce (Summer), 2025
Polaroid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20 cm
Golden Girl (Summer), 2025
Polarid emulsion lift and acrylic on canvas, 15 x 21 cm
Autumn returns to grounding greens and browns, closing the cycle in quiet continuity. Across these transitions, colour moves like breath—shifting, expanding, and revealing the unseen rhythms of transformation.
Nature, in this work, is not background but teacher. Its cycles mirror the act of becoming, of dying and being reborn again and again. The peeled emulsions, with their cracks and textures, reveal the beauty in imperfection and the holiness in repair. Sanctuary marks the spiritual beginning of this exploration—a turning inward toward presence, faith, and renewal. Its quiet revelations later find embodiment in Sexual Healing, where the same inquiry moves through the body. Together, they form a meditation on becoming whole, through nature, through flesh, through light.
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