Carnival

“Joy, when a whole people agree to let it move through them at the same time.

A canvas vibrates with colour and rhythm. Bodies blur into one another. This is Carnival, but the painting is not documenting a party — it is documenting a spiritual practice, a collective release, the moment a community remembers that celebration is not the opposite of suffering. It is what suffering makes room for.

We live inside cultures that often flatten joy into leisure. This piece disagrees. Joy is not the break between the important things. Joy is one of the most important things.

This painting isn’t asking you to dance.

It’s asking you to consider what your own life has been quietly rationing.

When did you last let joy move through you in a way that surprised you — and what would it take to let that happen again?”