The Totem paintings began from a simple idea: that none of us remain emotionally fixed.

Faces stack, repeat and shift through subtle changes in expression, moving between tension, vulnerability, disconnection and moments of calm. Some figures feel recognisable, others begin to dissolve into something less certain. I am less interested in producing polished portraits than in capturing emotional presence and the unstable nature of being human.

The surfaces are built slowly through layering, scraping, charcoal, oil stick and repeated disruption. Earlier marks are left visible beneath the paint, allowing traces of previous states to remain present within the work. I think of these layers as emotional residue, memory and pressure held inside the surface itself.

As the series developed, the paintings became less about identity and more about sensation, contradiction and psychological weight. The works sit in a continual push and pull between harmony and disruption, structure and collapse, control and vulnerability.