Why do I do what I do?

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I make the work I make, and I keep coming back to this push and pull between wanting to be seen and wanting to stay protected.

I have always been an observer. I can feel introverted in a room full of people, especially if the conversation stays on the surface, but with people I connect with, I love talking, exchanging ideas, and going deeper. I am terrible at small talk, but I am not without opinions or intensity. I think that contradiction has followed me for a long time.

In some ways, photography made perfect sense for me. It allowed me to be present, but from behind the camera. I could look, frame, direct, and participate, without having to fully stand in the center myself. And yet, when I was younger, I also dreamed of performing. I sang, played piano, wrote, drew, and imagined taking up space in a very visible way. But that also terrified me. So there has always been this strange combination in me: wanting to shine, wanting to be recognized, but also needing a layer of distance.

I grew up in Sweden, where there is a strong cultural idea of not being too much. Not too loud, not too ambitious, not too visible. At the same time, my home life was emotionally intense and unpredictable. I learned early to watch carefully, to sense shifts in mood, to hold things in, to adjust. So restraint was both cultural and personal.

Italy gave me something different. It gave me warmth, color, attention, and a sense of permission. I loved the feeling of being somewhere else, away from my family, away from the expectations I had grown up with. I think I have always been moving between those two places internally: the Swedish need for balance and restraint, and the Italian pull toward warmth, expression, and visibility.

Painting feels like the place where these contradictions meet. My work is often quiet, but I don’t think it is simply about quiet. It is about contained intensity. It is about what is held back, what almost appears, what is allowed to surface and what remains underneath.

I am interested in the edge of visibility. Forms that emerge but do not fully announce themselves. Marks that interrupt but do not dominate. Color that is muted but still carries feeling. I think the paintings are asking the same question I am asking myself: how much can be revealed? How much can I allow myself to take up space without losing the sense of protection I have always relied on?

So the work becomes a kind of negotiation. Between control and release. Between hiding and showing. Between silence and expression. Between wanting to disappear and wanting, very much, to be seen.