As a child, I could never sit still. I jumped, skipped, knew every song by heart and sang them at the top of my lungs. Then I learned the other way: how to sit properly, lower my voice, be responsible. I learned to say no, and most of the time, I said it to myself.

The black in this painting is that hand holding me back. Dry, decisive strokes, a calligraphy that knows only how to forbid.

But underneath, everything it tries to cover slips through. Pinks, yellows, blues, and among them, the words from back then, written exactly as I used to shout them: jump, leap, music. The little girl doesn’t wait her turn or ask for permission. She pushes through, spills over, sings, and almost knocks the grown woman who kept her quiet to the ground.

I’ve spent years telling myself no.

This work is about that contradiction: the learned rules versus the free impulse, two calligraphies that are two different ways of being in the world.

I painted this on the day I let her win.