Belonging

“True belonging doesn't require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.”

— Brené Brown,  Braving the Wildernesss

'Belonging' is a symbolic depiction of what it means to belong, not to a particular place, but to a life lived.

The 27 houses in this painting reference the homes I have called my own throughout my life. Yet they represent far more than the places I've lived. Together, they form a landscape of accumulated experience: joy and hardship, friendship and heartache, movement and loss, the happiness of finding our place and the inevitable letting go that comes with change.

As a South African artist who has built a life in New Zealand, I understand belonging as something that reaches beyond physical surroundings. It is shaped by the people we meet, the relationships we carry, the experiences that change us and the memories that remain long after we have moved on.

Here, the house becomes a vessel for these experiences. The painting is less about where we belong than how belonging is felt. Gathered over time through the many moments, connections and departures that make up a life.

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions: 760mm x 760mm