"Temperance" 2025 Oil on Canvas 50cm x 60cm

 

The title "Temperance" points to restraint: not responding, not reopening - resisting the pull of something that no longer belongs in your life.

This piece explores the kind of contact that doesn't end when a relationship does. The hand rests on the figure's face without permission, as though it still has a right to remain - familiar but no longer welcome, existing between memory and presence. 

The figure's expression sits between detachment and quiet disgust. She turns away, not in fear, but in rejection - aware of the touch but refusing to accept it. 

This work reflects the quieter aftermath of a relationship - the part no one prepares you for. When it ends, the body does not immediately understand. It holds onto gestures like ghosts: the shape of fingers, the weight of attention, the way someone once reached for you. These traces persist, finding ways to return - not physically, but in the spaces where you are most unguarded. 

Even from a distance, past relationships can linger. Even after separation, there can be a sense of being affected against your will. The touch becomes symbolic of that persistence: not intimate, but intrusive.