A Refuge Among Reflections

A Refuge Among Reflections (2026)

Ballpoint pen on collaged pages from Death (1911) by Maurice Maeterlinck 59 x 84 cm

In A Refuge Among Reflections, I draw myself seated on the floor, surrounded by pages from Maurice Maeterlinck’s Death. Behind the figure, a door remains open. At once, it suggests passage and absence, a threshold that can be seen but is unreachable.

The selected collaged pages are concerned with existential questions and prose regarding death, consciousness and the limits of understanding. The fragmented blocks of text almost overwhelm the cross-legged figure sitting in the corner of the composition, engulfed by unanswerable thoughts.

The seated body is frozen between reflection and confrontation. I was interested in the kind of refuge that appears when trauma and anxiety trigger a freeze response, when the body becomes still because there is nowhere else to go. In that state, stillness can feel protective and unbearable at the same time.