Shaking Hand With Geoffrey Rush, 2017

The painting grew out of an imagined meeting with Geoffrey Rush during a journey across Australia. While I was there the actor was named Australian of the Year, but the encounter never took place. That imagined handshake became the starting point for a reflection on the meaning of meetings that remain only a possibility.

The dynamic, multilayered composition does not reconstruct a particular event; it opens up the space between reality and imagination. The painting becomes a record of potential experience – a moment that never happened and yet left a lasting trace in memory. In this sense the handshake works as a universal symbol of dialogue, openness and relationships that reach beyond time, place and direct experience.