In For Now, the poet Eileen Myles refers to being compelled to create a ‘radiant hole’. When I first read this I was struck by this term - I felt that it articulated a feeling that I had been struggling to name within my own practice. When I begin a painting, I feel that I enter a kind of radiant hole, which frees up my mind to move in unanticipated directions. The radiant hole is a metaphysical space of absence, potential, openness, and receptivity. It is a space of emptiness I inhabit that paradoxically makes the paintings glow more with potential and energy. These paintings are the residue of entering this state.

Image credit: Bec Smith