Stepping Back to Go Forwards
Lately, I’ve felt creatively stuck.
Not entirely uninspired, but disconnected from the version of myself that once created instinctively, before overthinking, pressure and adulthood started shaping every decision. I’ve spent so much time focusing on where I should be going that I forgot to look back at where everything began.
In 2012, after finishing my A Levels, I created a figurative piece that I recently rediscovered while looking through old work. At the time, I wasn’t thinking about building a brand, selling art or defining a style. I was simply creating from curiosity and emotion, responding naturally to colour, form and expression. There was freedom in that process. I trusted my instincts more.
Looking at the piece now, I can recognise so many themes that still exist in my work today: femininity, softness, movement, atmosphere and emotional presence. Even then, I was drawn to creating figures that felt suspended between strength and vulnerability, realism and imagination.
What strikes me most is how honest the work feels. It wasn’t trying to become anything beyond itself.
Somewhere between then and now, creativity became tangled with expectation; expectations of success, stability, productivity and identity. Over time, that noise can pull you away from the reason you started creating in the first place.
Revisiting this piece reminded me that growth isn’t always about pushing forward relentlessly. Sometimes it requires returning to the beginning, reconnecting with the parts of yourself that felt most natural before fear and pressure took hold. The foundations of who we become creatively are often there from the start, waiting for us to notice them again.
I don’t think I’m meant to recreate the artist I was in 2012. But I do think there’s something important in remembering her; the curiosity, openness and instinct that first connected me to art.
Maybe moving forward isn’t about becoming someone entirely new. Maybe it’s about returning to what always felt true, and allowing that to guide the next chapter somewhere even deeper.