Stop Painting and Start Resolving

Toward the end of 2025, I began to reflect on what kind of year it truly was. It wasn’t a simple one—it was layered, emotional, and often contradictory. There were milestones I’m proud of, like completing my first portfolio for the Milan Art Institute’s online course. There were countless hours spent in the studio, and an ongoing (and still unresolved) search for my artistic voice and style.

Each painting from that year carries a story. Some remained unresolved, unclear, and unfinished. Others came together exactly as I had imagined—clear, intentional, and aligned with my original vision. But many never left the studio. Some were abandoned halfway through. Some were finished but quietly dismissed.

A recurring belief kept surfacing: I didn’t finish enough paintings—and when things didn’t work, I gave up.

When a painting resisted me—when it didn’t flow the way others had—I assumed something was fundamentally wrong with it. I convinced myself it wasn’t worth the time to fix. Walking away felt easier than staying. I thought abandoning the canvas was a form of discernment, when in reality, it was avoidance.

Then I began learning about resolving a painting.

Resolving means sitting in silence with the work. Looking—really looking—at what remains unresolved, unclear, or unfinished. The composition. The color story. The clarity of the message. The focal point. The texture. Instead of reacting, you observe. Instead of fleeing, you stay.

To my surprise, resolving turned out to be gentle. Even pleasant.

I started pulling canvases out of what I jokingly called the grave. I studied them. I asked questions instead of passing judgment. I didn’t try to save them all—some didn’t need saving—but I tried to understand them. And in doing so, something shifted. Fixing what wasn’t working became a revelation rather than a failure.

This realization didn’t stop at painting.

I began noticing the same pattern in my life. In the months leading up to this artistic breakthrough, I had already started resolving things that no longer worked for me: relationships that only flowed one way, habits of retreating into solitude whenever discomfort appeared, avoiding confrontation under the disguise of independence.

I started wondering—was my inability to resolve certain things in my paintings a reflection of what I hadn’t yet learned to resolve in myself?

I don’t have a definitive answer. But I know this: resolving changes everything.

When you resolve, you grow. You see differently. You access a version of yourself that wasn’t available before. You break cycles instead of repeating them. Whether on canvas or in life, resolution isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence, courage, and commitment to staying when things get uncomfortable.

Conclusion

Resolving has become an essential part of my practice—not just as an artist, but as a person. It taught me that walking away is easy, but staying with the unresolved is where transformation happens. In art, resolving turns confusion into clarity. In life, it turns patterns into choices.

I no longer see unfinished paintings as failures. I see them as conversations waiting to be continued. And I no longer fear the moment when things feel unresolved—because now I know that’s exactly where the real work begins.