Over the past couple of months, I’ve experienced many changes as I’ve transitioned from one chapter to the next. The one constant through all of that change has been my best friend: my dog, Uma. Uma has taught me what it means to really live and love. He has tremendously influenced my daily life and art practice as well. I draw and paint with the use of oil pastel, spray paint and acrylic paint and created a multifaceted interpretation of personal remembrance. As a child, my mother used to put big sheets of paper on the wall for me to draw on. I began with re-creating my drawings from a notebook I had drawn in throughout my days —transferring them onto a flat surface. I continue to put this into my practice, from a childhood memory to the present day. Being raised in an conservative country, I was taught art in a very ‘textbook’ way and have come a long way to break from that institutionalized mindset. I am reclaiming my youth, unlearning and re-learning art. My works are presented with the aim to identify where energy and spontaneity are important. Combining unrelated aspects lead to surprising analogies. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. By applying abstraction, I grasp language. Transformed into art, language becomes an ornament. I take in the tradition of remembrance into my practice. This personal follow-up and revival of a past tradition is important as an act of meditation.