In every exhibition, grant application, or artist talk, we are asked to explain ourselves. To define. To interpret. To articulate intention.

As if the artwork itself isn’t enough. As if silence isn’t an answer.

This is the age of the artist statement, and while reflection can be useful, there’s an implicit demand in contemporary art culture:

“Tell us what it means or we won’t know how to look at it.”

But what if the best art doesn’t want to be explained? What if its power is precisely in what it withholds?

Walk through most new neighbourhoods, office lobbies, or Instagram interiors today and you’ll see a recurring aesthetic: neutrals. White walls. Black tapware. Grey furniture. Charcoal cladding. Cream linen. If colour appears at all, it’s apologetically; a sage green throw, a dusty pink accent wall, a beige ceramic vase.

This is the world we’ve built: calm, tasteful, restrained, and deeply afraid of colour.

There are artists whose work you remember, and artists whose work you feel.

Keith Haring was both, but he was also something more. He was a movement. A rhythm. A visual pulse in a city that never stopped moving.

Is art the object; the canvas, the wall, the painted form? Or is it the moment something stirs within the viewer? Is it the thing, or the encounter with the thing?

We often associate the word play with childhood; with freedom, spontaneity, and imagination unbound by consequence. But in the studio, on the wall, or in the sketchbook, play is far more than child’s work. It is a serious methodology.

For centuries, women were permitted to paint; provided they confined their vision to interiors. The domestic realm, soft and cyclical, was considered an appropriate scale for female expression. Children at play, vases of cut flowers, sunlit rooms. These were the acceptable subjects for the feminine gaze, safe within the boundaries of private life.

In a well-meaning attempt to uplift women in the arts, the term “female artist” is often used to signal inclusion, empowerment, or progress. But despite good intentions, this label can quietly reinforce the very inequality it seeks to dismantle.

There is a certain beauty that emerges when human perception aligns itself with order. Not the dull rigidity of imposed systems, but the quiet elegance of internal rhythm. This is the beauty we encounter in the mathematics of art. Not as calculation, but as a philosophy of form.

The romantic image of the lone artist, toiling away in isolation, chasing inspiration in solitude, is a compelling myth. But in the realm of public art, creativity rarely works that way.

Public art is not created in a vacuum. It’s born in dialogue with place, people, planners, architects, fabricators, and sometimes, even passersby. In this context, collaboration isn’t a compromise, it’s a catalyst.

Art is often thought of as something that lives behind glass; framed, guarded, and hung on white walls. For many, entering a gallery can feel like crossing an invisible threshold of class, education, or privilege. The art may be powerful, but the context can be alienating.

That’s why public art matters.

We often think of a canvas as something stretched, primed, and waiting. A pristine rectangle on an easel or wall, patiently anticipating the mark of the artist. But this definition is both too narrow and too passive.

A canvas is not a surface, it is an invitation. And that invitation can exist anywhere.

Walk through almost any city today and you’ll likely encounter a mural; often large, figurative, and skilfully rendered. There’s no denying the technical prowess behind many of these works. They’re celebrated, photogenic, and accessible. But as an artist deeply engaged in the evolution of visual language, I believe we’ve reached a plateau.

At first glance, abstraction can appear precise; a studied interplay of form, colour, and space. But beneath the surface of many abstract works lies a kind of structured uncertainty: a choreography between control and chaos, intention and improvisation. For me, chance and risk are not accidents in the creative process. They are methods.

Great cities aren’t built solely by architects or planners; they’re forged in the friction between people, place, and culture. When cities become too planned, too polished, or too gentrified, they often lose the very thing that makes them vibrant: spontaneity.

The relationship between graffiti and public art is often misunderstood and cast in opposition rather than seen as part of a shared cultural evolution. Yet the two are not adversaries, but kin. Born from the same urban fabric, they speak a common language: visibility, territory, identity, and voice. One cannot fully understand the value of public art in contemporary cities without acknowledging its roots in the graffiti movement.

Across the built environment, liminal zones; alleyways, retaining walls, façades, and underpasses,  often sit in a kind of spatial limbo. They exist between function and neglect, structure and experience. Yet within these overlooked surfaces lies immense potential. When art intervenes, these dormant spaces are not merely decorated; they are redefined.