Original Acrylic Paintings - The 3 Whys

1. What I Chose Not to See

(See No Evil)

This piece speaks to the moments when seeing the truth felt impossible.

There were things that stood directly in front of me—warning signs, broken promises, patterns of hurt—but acknowledging them would have meant facing realities I wasn’t ready to confront. Sometimes survival meant convincing myself things would get better. Sometimes it meant looking away because the truth was too heavy to carry.

The flowers growing from the neck represent the parts of me that continued to grow despite what I refused to see. Even in denial, even in fear, there was still life pushing forward.

This painting isn’t about blindness. It’s about self-preservation.

What I chose not to see wasn’t because it wasn’t there. It was because I wasn’t yet ready to survive what seeing it would mean.

2. The Things I Couldn’t Unhear

(Hear No Evil)

Some words never leave.

This painting represents every conversation, accusation, insult, judgment, and painful truth that found a permanent place in my memory. Long after the voices were gone, their echoes remained.

The swirling colors covering the eyes symbolize how what I heard eventually shaped how I saw myself and the world around me. The silence gesture is not about keeping secrets—it is about carrying things that had no safe place to go.

There are words people forget after they speak them.

Then there are words that become part of someone’s story.

This piece is about the weight of hearing things that changed me and the struggle of learning which voices deserved to stay and which ones deserved to be released.

3. The Words I Buried

(Speak No Evil)

This painting is the heart of the series.

It represents every time I stayed silent when I wanted to scream. Every truth I swallowed. Every question I never asked. Every hurt I carried because speaking felt dangerous, pointless, or impossible.

The hands covering the mouth are not placed there by someone else. They are my own.

For years, silence felt safer than being misunderstood. Safer than conflict. Safer than rejection. So the words stayed inside, piling up beneath the surface.

The fragmented colors surrounding the figure represent all the stories, emotions, and memories that were never spoken aloud.

This piece is about the cost of silence—and the realization that buried words never disappear. They simply wait to be heard.