18 x 24 Acrylic on Canvas

Grief often reveals itself in the quietest ways.

I lost my brother to cancer after a long and difficult fight. When someone close is gone, it is not always the major milestones that ache the most. It is the everyday spaces they once filled. The chair they sat in. The sound of their steps across the floor.

This painting became part of my healing.

A wooden empty chair rests alone beside an open window. Light moves gently into the room, stretching across worn floorboards and casting long shadows. A pair of shoes sits in front of the chair, to remind me those shoes will be hard to feel.  

The open window carries meaning. For me, it symbolized release. Letting his spirit move beyond these walls, even when my heart wanted to keep him here.

The textured walls feel unsettled, mirroring the weight of loss. Yet the light remains steady, soft but present.

“An Empty Chair” holds silence, memory, and love. The space is vacant, but it is not empty. It carries what remains when someone we love is deeply missed.