Paris - from the Painted Word project
We told ourselves it would be an ordinary day, though Paris never allows that. We set out without a plan, chasing the idea of "living like locals" (no eiffel tower nonsense), which mostly meant getting lost beautifully. One of us spoke no French, the other no English, so we relied on the quick grammar of hands, sketches, and glances. We found that a line drawn in the air could mean a dozen things - a direction, a question, a joke.
We wandered the city as if it were a film we’d accidentally stepped into. Wine in Saint-Germain, rain in Belleville, the river flashing silver through the gaps between umbrellas. Every street seemed to begin in one language and end in another. We didn’t talk much - couldn’t - but somehow the silence filled with meaning.
By nightfall, soaked and half-cut, we returned to the studio, trailing the day behind us like a wet coat. We began painting before the spell broke. No words, just the rhythm of movement, the sound of paint being dragged across canvas, the pulse of the city still in our wrists. What one of us started, the other completed. What one blurred, the other brought back to focus.
Paris became not a portrait of the city, but of the day itself - the misunderstandings, the collisions, the small moments of recognition that pass between people who cannot speak, yet somehow understand. It’s what happens when language falls away and only colour is left to tell the story.