Lionfish and the Pearl

“The painting Lionfish and Pearlcomes from a series of abstractions I created years ago. It’s a smaller format, and I like it mainly because it actually told me very quickly what it should be named. Some paintings are hard to name, but here it came quite naturally. When you look at it closely, you begin to discover both the lionfish and the pearl in it – in a strange, somewhat unexpected combination.

The lionfish is a fish known for being extremely venomous. It is incredibly beautiful but also very dangerous—stepping on one in the sea can be fatal. This ambivalence fascinates me: beauty and threat exist simultaneously. The pearl, on the other hand, is present in the painting more as a quiet, calm, minimalist motif. Something pure and precious.

The more colorful, fragmented structure underneath reminds me of the lionfish itself—its peculiar, almost poisonous coloring. Because of this, the painting sort of ‘revealed’ itself to me. The title and meaning emerged naturally, without force, and I feel that the viewer can discover these layers in it just as I did.”