Silent Selves: The Space Between
Mention a pile of leaves and most people think of garden chores—the seasonal ritual of raking the lawn. For me, however, that pile became the foundation for a new body of work: Silent Selves.
Over the past few years, my work has gradually shifted inward. My haiga collection, in particular, sharpened my awareness of the quiet beauty in the mundane—fragments of shoreline, weathered forms, and the unnoticed rhythms of light. During that period, I began collecting autumn leaves. I wasn’t sure why; perhaps they were intended for a future haiga, or perhaps they simply felt worth keeping.
For over a year, they sat on a shelf in my studio. I passed them daily without really seeing them.
Then, one afternoon, I stopped.
The leaves had long since dried, their vibrant colours faded to muted earth tones. But as I picked them up and turned them over, I noticed something. The sun-facing surface and the protected inner surface were distinct: structurally identical, yet sometimes visually worlds apart. One carried the memory of the sun; the other felt more contained, more private.
Even altered by time, each leaf retained a singular character. That moment of observation marked the beginning of Silent Selves.
Rather than photographing these as botanical specimens, I began studying them as forms. Isolated. Paired. Reduced. This minimalism has come to define my recent work: removing the environmental context to allow structure, tone, and translucency to carry the weight.
The process was slow. I became less interested in surface detail, concentrating on what emerged through restraint. The idea began to take shape around surface and interior — how one informs the other, and how neither exists alone.
The twelve image work eventually found its own order in a series of triptychs: each comprising three related images forming a quiet study of a single idea.
The first of these, Identity, examines the tension between outward appearance and inward structure. While each panel features the same leaf, each offers a different encounter. Seen together, they suggest a subject that is layered rather than singular; the experience enhanced through knowing a little of each.
Identity: one of four triptychs in the twelve image Silent Selves series. In this triptych I present Persona (left), Essence (right) and Resonance (the central image).
Throughout the series, the repetition is deliberate. The leaves are similar, yet never identical; variation sits inside consistency. What first appears minimal becomes increasingly complex the longer one looks.
This isn’t a study of decay, and it’s not really about autumn either. It’s about how interior and exterior coexist — how form persists even as colour fades.
Silent Selves is now a completed body of work, but it didn't begin as a grand concept. It began as a pause—a decision to stop passing something by and, instead, look more closely.
The leaves are still on the shelf.