Poppies (Sold)

I wanted this piece to feel like a quiet pause… Poppies have a long history of symbolizing remembrance, especially in Europe, and I leaned into that while painting. The figure stands alone in the field, hair blown across the face, eyes hidden. It’s a moment of stillness—just you, the wind, and the red. I felt very lost at the time as well… “Poppies” captured a feeling: I felt alone in a field of red.

I left the edges of the canvas unfinished on purpose. I didn’t want it to feel like a full scene, more like a glimpse. Something fleeting and personal. The colors are bright, the brushstrokes loose, and the feeling is simple: solitude, reflection, grief, and a lot of red.

And it is a stillness that’s not quiet by choice. It’s the kind of stillness you find in a room after something has been torn out—a heart, maybe. Not in a tragic way, but in a violent way that forces space. And in that space, something small and stubborn begins to stir. Like a lamb that doesn’t know it’s alone yet. It bleats once—soft, confused—and that sound is the first beat. Not a rhythm, not a song. Just a flicker. Then another. And slowly, this canvas began to fill with something that wasn’t there before. Not blood, exactly. Flowers. Not light, but fragments, and a presence. A quiet insistence that this scene, this stillness, is alive.