The romantic idea of the traveling artist captivates me. Though I love to travel, my real journey begins when I return home. It is through my memories that the true meaning of my travels comes alive. 

Recently, I have been immersed in landscape painting. It felt natural to start developing this side of my painting practice. To me, landscape painting stands alongside the human figure as one of the foundational elements of painting in history.To truly study the landscape, I wanted to be fully immersed in it, just me and the forest. So, I decided to organise my own little residency, surviving a week alone in the Swedish Forest.

When you spend a longer period in one spot in the forest, you begin to notice how alive it truly is. It changes constantly, moment by moment. My initial plan was to draw and paint while I was there. But I quickly realised how much time was consumed by basic tasks. Keeping the fire burning, cooking meals, and even making coffee required far more effort than expected. Every drop of water I drank had to be collected from a nearby lake, purified, boiled, and stored. Each trip to collect water took time, and everything needed to be completed before sunset.n the forest, darkness arrives early and brings a complete halt to activities. By 18:00, the world shrinks to the small radius illuminated by my flashlight. Venturing out to collect water at night felt too risky. My mental map of the area, turning left at a certain tree, passing a small pool, climbing a hill, and finding the camp near a mushroom covered trunk became useless in the pitch black night.The forest transforms after dark. Animals stir, and a deep, weighty silence settles over everything. It is no longer the same place it was during the day. In those quiet moments, with nothing left to do but sit by the fire and listen, I felt a profound connection to the landscape around me a connection that continues to shape my paintings long after I returned home.