Velvet Brushstrokes & Quiet Fire

They asked me once, “Why do you paint?”

And I didn’t know how to answer—until now.

This isn’t an explanation.

It’s what lives between the brushstrokes.

What burns softly beneath the bloom.

I don’t paint to be understood.

I paint so you feel less alone in what you can’t explain.

I’m not here to intellectualize pain or romanticize joy.

I’m here to hold the in-between.

The ache before the bloom.

The hush before the light enters.

So I paint.

Not flowers, but their ghosts.

Not joy, but the hush before it arrives.

Not statements, but sensations.

But let me tell you something else.

Sometimes, I paint just because it feels good.

Because neon pink called my name.

Because a brush in my hand feels steadier than the world outside.

Because smudging color across canvas is a kind of prayer with no words.

I draw each petal by hand—again and again—like tracing memories I never fully let go of.

They’re not botanical.

They’re echoes.

A way to hold the ache that lingers.

A way to quiet the noise that doesn’t.

Not everything I make is from sorrow.

Sometimes it’s just play.

Just breath.

Just a dance between paint and pulse.

My work is for the ones who feel too much but stay quiet.

For those who like their beauty with a bruise, their softness with steel.

Where the brushstroke is a question, not a performance.

It’s where velvet meets raw edge.

My brush speaks in layers.

Velvet on top, but underneath?

Quiet fire.

The kind that simmers instead of screams.

The kind that makes you look twice, then look away.

A tension between elegance and ache, like pearls worn to a funeral.

Between grief that lingers, and bloom that doesn't ask permission.

Between what we say with grace and what we almost said, with trembling hands.

I’m not a philosopher.

I’m not a curator of clean-cut narratives.

I’m a woman who’s lived in too many rooms of emotion and decided to paint the wallpaper of every one.

I don’t need my work to match your sofa.

I need it to mirror something you haven’t dared name.

So no, this is not decorative art.

It’s devotional.

Not because it worships, but because it listens.

If you’ve ever felt too much, too soon, too quiet,

This space was made for you.

Because I don’t paint to explain.

I paint to remind us: Some truths are meant to be felt.

In velvet.

And in fire.

Still painting the ache..and sometimes, the joy.

—Dura Ki Hana