We Cannot Miss The House

Oil on canvas. This painting came together quickly, almost impulsively, as an emotional response to the memory
of a house that once felt like home. It was the place my mother and I stayed when we had
nowhere else to go, living with my aunt during a time of uncertainty. The house was strange and
beautiful, chaotic and full of life, full of flowers, cluttered rooms, corners to explore. It was never
locked; family could always walk in. Now, after a complicated situation, the house is no longer
"ours." My aunt, who spent her whole life there, was forced to move out. The house is cold now
and there are no more flowers, it’s being modernized. It’s strange to not be able to go inside
anymore.
The tension and the nostalgia now linked to this house have manifested in the painting, without
me even realizing until after it was finished. The title comes from what my aunt told me when I
asked if she and her husband missed the house: “We cannot miss it, otherwise we would be sad.”