Ghosts of Resilience: Painting the Unseen

© 2025 Dora Williams “Fading into Silence” (detail)

Newest series of paintings created in 2025.

My work begins in silence. A blank canvas, a breath, a gesture. From these quiet beginnings, I build paintings that explore identity, visibility, and emotional resilience—often through the lens of the female figure.

I start each piece with loose, intuitive marks. There’s no roadmap—just movement, instinct, and response. These initial gestures form the emotional groundwork for what comes next: layers of paint, drawing, erasure, and translucent washes. Over time, figures begin to emerge—sometimes clearly, sometimes barely—shifting in and out of focus like memories, like ghosts.

This process mirrors the themes I’m drawn to. I think a lot about presence and disappearance, about the ways we’re seen or not seen, especially as women. Marginalisation often feels like erasure—subtle, quiet, but deeply felt. In my work, that erasure becomes part of the narrative. The partially obscured figure, the dissolving form—they reflect complex emotional states: solitude, vulnerability, strength.

My palette tends toward softness. Muted tones and transparent layers invite closeness, asking the viewer to lean in. These quiet surfaces carry weight. They’re not about loud declarations, but about endurance. About showing up, even in silence.

There’s strength in fragility. And there’s connection in stillness. My hope is that these paintings become spaces of recognition—where viewers can see something of themselves, something honest, something held.

In a world that often demands boldness to be noticed, I choose to honor what’s nearly invisible. Because even in disappearance, there is presence. And even in solitude, there is resilience.