This piece was created after I parted ways with my friends, at a new beginning of my life in Edinburgh. It took me nearly four months to complete. During that time, I met many kind people and formed a new bond. The painting carries my loneliness, but it also holds the love and warmth I received.
These complex and contradictory emotions mirror my own experience of living in this beautiful city as a foreigner. It feels like being confined within a heart-shaped prison—one that is, paradoxically, beautiful and poetic.
Our relationships with others can sometimes feel as if they are separated by glass, like living beneath a transparent bell jar. Yet my particular feelings toward life and toward the people around me make me believe that the jar may be open at the top—allowing me to look up and see the sky.
One day, the specific love I hold for specific people and my own sense of loneliness no longer felt opposed to each other. They settled quietly together—much like the way Sylvan gazes at me gently from within the canvas.