Scroll down to see the painting and click the painting to zoom in

This work is a meditation on transience, connection, and the strange elegance of things that aren’t meant to last. And sometimes, that’s ok.

I often find beauty in contrast. In this painting, it’s the quiet magic of an unlikely couple: an old, frail man and a beautiful woman sharing a brief moment on the dance floor. They barely touch, and yet something is exchanged—something tender, ephemeral, and unspoken.

I wanted to explore gesture in figurative painting, and chose a floating, dynamic pose for the woman—light, elegant, and full of motion. Her posture suggests lift, like she's momentarily weightless. To balance this, I gave the man a more rigid, grounded pose: stiff, careful, and shaped by fragility. Their physical tension echoes the emotional one—one rising, the other holding on.

Her pose was especially challenging. I wanted her to be in motion, expressive and elegant, but the weight distribution between her feet needed to feel believable. If she were too engaged, too assertive, she would have wiped the man right off the dance floor—which would have broken the fragile balance I was after. I needed a pose that worked both in terms of gesture and story: engaging, but restrained. I went through several sketches until I found the right one—where the line between grace and caution could live side by side.

To heighten the moment’s impact, I introduced a distinct shaft of light falling into the room, transforming the woman’s dark dress into a burst of color. The light becomes a character in itself, illuminating her in contrast to the gritty, worn surroundings—an interior that seems more aligned with the man’s life than hers. She feels slightly out of place, and perhaps that’s part of the thrill: the beauty of something fleeting and out of reach.

I may return to this theme again—perhaps one day inverting their roles, allowing the woman to embody stillness and weight, while the man takes on movement. It’s a contrast I’m curious to explore further.