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There was another dancer lingering in my mind—quieter, more inward. I wanted to return backstage, not to the moment after the performance, but to that quiet stretch before it. The stillness before the curtain lifts. The inhale before the music starts.

As I’ve mentioned before, I keep returning to Degas and his ballerinas—not just their gestures, but the textures around them: tulle, wood, skin, dust. His pastels and gouaches seem to breathe fabric. That tension between material and mark-making fascinates me. How does one render a surface using nothing but colour, edge, and value? If it’s all the same, then why does one smear read as glass, another as leather, and another still as tulle?

And again: the mirror. The glowing vanity lights. That backstage glow where warmth meets anxiety, where the self is both prepared and unready.

In many ways, this painting is a companion to Smoke and Mirrors—a sister piece. Similar vocabulary, different voice.
The pose tells the shift. Where the first dancer seemed caught off guard, this one has withdrawn. She stares downward, hands clenching the fabric in her lap. There’s rest in her posture, but also tension—like someone holding themselves together just long enough. A body suspended between gathering and letting go. That moment when stage fright doesn’t yet have a name, but already sits in the stomach.

In Smoke and Mirrors, I had experimented with a feathered shawl, playing drama off looseness. This time, I wanted something heavier, more sculptural—a dress full of folds and fluff. Excessive, extravagant, but also delicate. A garment that carries weight and lightness at once. And those folds became something more as I painted them: a kind of topography. Each crease felt like a tangle of thought. Her hands don’t simply touch the fabric—they appear to search for something to hold on to, as if it’s the only thing that feels real.

And then—there’s the mirror again. But this time, the reflection doesn’t quite match. It’s close, but wrong.

And that, too, is part of the story.