Breaking Grid

Some pictures just won't come together.

“Breaking Grid” began as a portrait titled “Firefly Cosmos.” For years, it waited to be completed—but something about it didn’t feel right. I didn’t know how to change it. So the work remained trapped within its established order.

As I explored the theme of “Order and Chaos,” it suddenly became clear what had to happen: The work had to be destroyed so that something new could emerge.

I took a deep breath and cut up the nearly finished wool painting.

From this moment of chaos, a completely new composition emerged effortlessly and naturally, as if of its own accord. The left half of the image still retains fragments of the original order. Toward the right, the portrait gradually dissolves. Shapes shift, boundaries blur, and the grid loses its control.

To me, the finished work has retained its cosmic quality. It brings to mind stars and nebulae—those places where dissolution and creation are inextricably linked.

We often try to bring order to our lives. We plan, organize, and keep track of things. But sometimes, something new emerges precisely when we’re ready to let go of that order.

“Breaking Grid” tells the story of this moment—of the uncertainty that arises when familiar structures break down, but also of the freedom that can emerge from it. Perhaps this work reminds us that chaos is not always the opposite of order. Sometimes it is the beginning of a new order.