To mimic is to repeat. To repeat is to exist. Imitation is neither choice nor accident. It happens. A gesture, a word, a face, copied, reflected, distorted. You see it, then you do it. Then someone else does it. Then you forget who started it.
These images mimic. Not because they want to, but because that is what images do. They mirror, they shift, they replace. The copy is never exact, yet the difference is almost nothing. A small flicker, a delay, a mistake. That’s where it happens. That’s where the original loses itself.
Who mimics whom? And why? Is it admiration? Obligation? A reflex? A performance? The one who mimics is not in control. The one being mimicked is not in control. It happens. Again and again, until no one knows who they are anymore.
In looking into painting, what it represents, how I engage with it, and how I present images. I do not paint things as they are but as they appear in the moment I encounter them. Not as fixed objects, but as situations: things placed, things altered, things shifting in and out of context.
In my work, I often find myself comparing human behavior to the images I create. I’ve come to believe that what we see is a reflection of who we are. As if perception itself reveals something unspoken, something about the person looking, rather than the thing being looked at.
I wanted to explore this idea of comparison more intentionally, and that’s when I remembered the word mimic. Some images I capture instinctively, without knowing why. Others start as notes or sketches, things I write down so I won’t forget. Over time, I see them differently. Their meaning shifts. But by then, I’ve already forgotten why I wrote them in the first place.