Waiting (Temple Boats)

This riverside tableau lingers in the charged stillness between departure and return, where boat prows—painted in ceremonial reds—lean toward the viewer like guardians of passage. The composition is braided through with diagonals of hulls and oars, yet it is the water’s broken mirror that conducts the painting’s emotional register, dissolving solid forms into trembling reflections and making labor feel momentary, almost lyrical. Cool blues and smoky greys temper the heat of the vermilion boats, suggesting a fragile harmony between human presence and a larger, indifferent river-time. Figures remain secondary, not as portraits but as quiet measures of scale, emphasizing the anonymity and continuity of daily ritual at the edge of the current.