Why Circles?
Updated: 4 days ago
On minimalism, repetition, and the space we occupy.
I've always been drawn to minimalism, to the idea that something complicated can be reduced to its simplest form without losing its meaning.
When I try to imagine the most minimal visual representation of almost anything, I find myself returning to a circle. A cell, a planet, a beginning, an ending. The circle belongs to no one thing, yet somehow seems capable of representing everything.
Rather than inventing a different symbol for each idea, I chose one shape and began repeating it.
My work is made through thousands of individually hand-drawn circles using India ink and water. There are no stencils or mechanical shortcuts. Each circle is drawn by hand, and although the gesture remains essentially the same, no two marks are identical.
That interests me. Repetition is often associated with precision and uniformity, yet the more circles I draw, the more visible their differences become. Pressure changes. Ink runs out. Water spreads. Lines overlap, fade, or become heavier than intended.
The structure is repetitive, but the result is unmistakably human.
We live in a world increasingly concerned with correcting, optimizing, and automating. I find something meaningful in a process that resists those impulses. Drawing thousands of imperfect circles is slow, deliberately inefficient, and impossible to reproduce exactly.
A single circle might seem insignificant. But placed among thousands of others, it becomes part of something larger without surrendering its individuality.
And perhaps that's what interests me most.
Sometimes the bigger circles overwhelm the smaller ones. Sometimes the ink smudges, colors bleed, or boundaries disappear. Yet every mark remains part of the composition. Nothing needs to be corrected simply because it is different.
I think there's something profoundly human about that.
We spend so much of our lives trying to distinguish ourselves, prove our worth, or find our place among others. Yet perhaps belonging doesn't require us to become anything other than what we already are.
We are all just taking up space.
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