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This was a real turning point for me. It wasn’t an easy one either. I think there’s this illusion that the more time you have, the more creative you’ll be, like time is always the answer. Sometimes it is, but not always. Back then, I was juggling two jobs, and it was becoming too much of a strain. One of them ended in a full-on row with my manager over the phone. The next day, I sent my resignation letter. The other one wasn’t any better.

When you work jobs that put your body on the line, it brings out the worst in people, not just you but your colleagues too. Everyone’s tired, everyone’s stressed, and things just blow up. I think that’s what happened. So I quit both. It was volatile, but it was what needed to happen.

After that, I decided to go all in. I got myself a studio space and thought, screw it, let’s just do this. I was scared though. I still felt lost, like I was searching for what I was actually trying to say with my work. But I just kept going.

Every day I’d go to the studio, pick up a canvas, and try to make something. I had about six canvases sitting there. I’d make something, hate it, then start again. Next day, same thing. Paint, fail, rethink, try again. It became this constant repetition, almost a cycle of frustration.

But through that, something started to happen. You hear people say your breakthrough is just around the corner, and it’s true. You just can’t give up before you get there. During this time, my church was also going through our month of fasting and praying, a month focused on breakthrough and prayers. I was showing up as regularly as I could and partaking in that. So while I was searching for clarity in my art, I was also deepening my spiritual life.

That was when I really started to understand what grace meant. Grace meaning unmerited favour, knowing that the work I was making wasn’t just me. I found myself praying and saying, God, you know why you’ve put these passions in me. You’re the only one who can really show up for me, and you’ve shown up for me every single stage of my life. I can’t even be ungrateful. All I can give is thanks, but please, show up for me again.

I was constantly looking at art, every single day. I just kept looking and looking and looking. I consumed everything I could find. And then at some point, I realised that the things we avoid are often the things we most need to face. For me, that thing was figuration.

I think part of why I’d avoided it for so long was because, deep down, that’s all I’d ever known. I grew up drawing cartoons and comics. When I was about twelve, I used to make comic books. I’d fill my schoolbooks with sketches of anime characters. That’s what I loved.

Then in secondary school, I took art, and suddenly it was all fruit bowls and vases. I hated it. It felt dead. My art teacher at the time was pretty keen to get me out of her class. Once I drew a figure, and she actually laughed. She made fun of it. Which, honestly, is whatever. Not everyone’s meant to like you, and maybe we just didn’t get along.

But that moment stuck. It made me believe that figuration wasn’t something I was allowed to do properly because all I knew were cartoons. I thought if I showed that side of myself, people would see straight through it and say, this isn’t real art. You can’t do that. You’re breaking the rules.

So I buried it.

Then I came across the Superflat genre. I just kept looking at art, every day without fail, until one day I stumbled upon the works of Ayako Rokkaku and Yoshitomo Nara. Seeing their work was like someone had said, it’s fine, you can make the work you actually care about.

It wasn’t about copying their style. It was about realising I didn’t need permission anymore. It was like hearing someone say, it’s fine, you can be yourself. I remember thinking, thank you Ayako, thank you Nara, because that was the validation I needed. It wasn’t a new path, it was a reminder that this had always been my path.

And I’ve always loved Jean-Michel Basquiat too. From around fourteen, I admired his energy and how freely he painted. But the skulls and anatomy in his work came from his own story. When he was a child, he had a car accident, and while he was in hospital, his mum gave him a book of Grey’s Anatomy. That’s where his fascination with the human body and bones came from. That was his thing.

For me, my Grey’s Anatomy was cartoons. It was Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Jetix, and all those late nights watching animation that felt more alive than real life. Those stories, those colours, those characters never left me. They shaped how I saw the world.

So when I finally leaned into figuration, it wasn’t just about art anymore. It was about identity. It was like saying, I’ve been given permission to be myself in this world now.

After that, the ideas just poured out. I started building stories, characters, experimenting with colour, exaggeration, expression, all of it. Making art became fun again. It became real. I saw that this could actually be my life, that I could speak through my work honestly and joyfully.

And I know for a fact it was God’s grace that carried me through it. It was His hand that opened those doors and reminded me that this gift was always mine. I just had to have the faith to use it.