It’s been a long time since I’ve finished a piece, but “Nigredo” finally feels like coming back to myself.

In alchemy, this is the first step: the blackening. It’s that stage where everything breaks down before it can transform.

This piece marks my return to art full time after a long hiatus.During this process my style has shifted, too. I’ve traded my linocut tools for the fluid movement of paint and the grounding feeling of natural pigments. Working with brown oxide and acrylics has felt like an act of excavation. It didn’t feel like just a painting, it was a celebration of finding my voice again in the dark.