Happy Tortoise
There was a tortoise once, in a garden in the foothills. She moved through seasons the way some people move through conversations: present without urgency, attentive without performance. Happy Tortoise began the day Dev remembered her. Not the image of her. The quality of her.
Thick layers of pigment, weeks of application, each layer a different warmth. The figure appeared on the canvas before it was looked for. That is the signature of this collection: the work has a way of arriving on its own schedule.
I didn't know it was a tortoise until it already was one.




