What Remains, Blooms. is a 36 × 36 inch coloured-pencil drawing created over two months after I returned to drawing following several years away.

The work grew from thinking about how life changes us. Moving to Canada meant leaving behind a place, relationships, routines and people I once saw every day. With time, some connections changed, some faded, and some people, including my grandmother, became part of memory.

I chose marigolds because they hold both warmth and remembrance. For me, they represent the traces people and experiences leave behind. Even when a person, place or chapter of life is gone, something of it remains in how we think, love, remember and become.

That is the meaning of the title: what remains, blooms.

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