Iona, Scotland
On Disruption and Painting
Travel often disrupts my flow of thought and my connection to painting. When I’m away from the studio, I feel a rupture between myself and the subject, the canvas, and the process itself. That break can be unsettling. It pulls me out of rhythm, and I sometimes struggle to find my way back in. But I’ve come to recognize that this very disruption is not a problem — it’s essential.
When I traveled to Scotland last year, I felt this disruption vividly. In Edinburgh and Glasgow, the energy of the cities was electric, dense, and layered in history. Then, arriving on Iona, everything shifted — the sea, the wind, the sheer presence of stone and sky. It was profound, and it forced a shift in my perceptions; my very balance was thrown off. Instead of resisting, I let that disorientation seep into my sketchbooks and watercolors. The change in light, the scale of the land, even the rhythm of walking across the island broke open new ways of seeing.
Over time, I’ve realized that painting itself is a practice of disruption. The surface of the canvas is never neutral; its size, shape, and presence physically alter how I move and think. Even small shifts — a new format, a different scale, or a strange color relationship — can jolt me out of my comfort zone. I welcome those moments. They remind me that art is not about settling into flow but about being surprised, interrupted, even knocked off balance.
I don’t seek disruption for its own sake, but because it opens space for discovery. Each interruption, whether caused by travel, materials, or my own restless thought process, creates the possibility of finding something unexpected. For me, the most interesting paintings are born from those breaks in continuity — from the places where what I thought I knew gives way to what I didn’t expect.
Painting, in the end, is less about preserving the flow than about disrupting it. And in those disruptions, I create something new. Allow disruptions to subvert your reality.
