2025 · Oil on Canvas · London, Ontario, Canada
A moment of presence, captured in color and form.
Observing oneself in the act of simply being.
I painted Dissolve after a quiet afternoon at the swimming pool.
Inside the steam room, the air was thick and warm.
Shapes softened. Edges disappeared. Time slowed.
Through the mist, I noticed a figure standing a few steps away.
Just a back, a shoulder line, the curve of the neck.
Nothing dramatic — yet everything felt complete.
The body was neither posing nor performing.
It simply existed in the space, breathing with the heat, gradually blending into the air.
I was drawn to that fragile boundary —
where the body ends and the atmosphere begins.
Later, in the studio, I tried not to paint the person exactly as I saw them.
Instead, I painted the sensation.
The blur.
The humidity.
The quiet awareness of being inside one’s own skin.
Each brushstroke softened the edges, allowing the figure to almost disappear into color and light.
Not vanishing, but loosening.
Not asserting, but yielding.
If Still, I Stand is about dignity and standing firmly in the world,
Dissolve is about the opposite gesture —
about letting go.
About trusting that we do not always have to define ourselves sharply.
Sometimes, simply being present is enough.
The painting was later exhibited at the 2025 London Pride Art Show, where it received a Jurors’ Award and was collected.
To me, it remains a quiet reminder:
we don’t always need to hold our shape.
Sometimes, we are allowed to soften.
To blur.
To dissolve into the moment.
— Percy Lin