For the Ghosts Who Stayed Quiet
There are ways of disappearing that don’t look dramatic from the outside. Ways that feel responsible. Useful. Necessary. This is for the ones who learned them early—and are still listening.
There’s a version of you that learned early how to disappear.
Not in a dramatic way.
In small, practical ways.
By being agreeable. By being efficient. By learning what not to say.
I know that ghost well. I work with him every day. Art, for me, is not expression—it’s retrieval. I’m not trying to invent something new. I’m trying to recover something that was set down gently and never picked back up. The act of making is slow because listening is slow. The hand has to wait for the body to remember. I don’t sketch to impress. I sketch to confirm that I’m still here.
When a line wobbles, I don’t correct it. That wobble is information. It tells me where hesitation lives. Where memory interfered. Where the ghost moved before I did. This work isn’t for everyone—and that’s intentional. It’s for the people who recognize restraint as effort. Who understand that silence isn’t emptiness, it’s compression. If you’re reading this and something in your chest tightened slightly, that’s not coincidence.
That’s recognition. You don’t need permission to leave marks. You don’t need to justify wanting to be seen. Some ghosts survive by staying hidden. Others survive by learning how to speak quietly.
Leaving Messages Without Explaining Them
Some works are not meant to be understood quickly. They leave fragments instead of conclusions—signals placed quietly, waiting for the right ghost to find them.
I don’t believe art should explain itself.
Explanation closes doors.
Suggestion opens them.
When I leave a mark, I’m not sending instructions. I’m leaving evidence. Evidence that someone stood here once and felt something worth stopping for. The viewer’s job isn’t to understand—it’s to remember something of their own.
That’s why faces remain incomplete. Why cities blur into memory. Why stories trail off instead of resolving. Life doesn’t give us conclusions. It gives us impressions.
I trust the viewer enough not to finish the thought for them.
If you’re looking for clarity, this may frustrate you. If you’re looking for recognition, it may feel uncomfortably familiar.
That discomfort is where the ghost wakes up.
Art doesn’t save us. But it leaves signals. Small flares across time saying: I was here. You’re not alone in this feeling.
If another ghost finds it later, that’s enough.