But I started anyway…

01/05/2026

After I graduated from art school, I didn’t feel like I had found myself.
If anything, I felt more lost than ever.

There was this quiet but persistent doubt—
about my work, about my direction, about whether I could really call myself an artist at all.
What I thought would be the beginning felt more like a pause I didn’t know how to move through.

So I stepped away.

Life filled up quickly.

I became busy in ways that felt necessary and responsible—
building a life, fitting into what felt like reality, doing what needed to be done.
I learned how to keep going, how to be practical, how to play the roles expected of me.

And for a long time, that was enough.
Or at least, I told myself it was.

But something stayed with me.

Not loudly.
Not demanding attention.

Just a quiet sense that something had been left behind.

Becoming a mother shifted that feeling in a way I didn’t expect.

It wasn’t immediate or dramatic, but over time, I started to realise that
the question of finding myself wasn’t something I could keep postponing.

There was a kind of honesty that came with it.
Watching my child grow, I became more aware of how important it is
to live close to what feels true.

And I wasn’t.

Coming back to painting didn’t happen all at once.

It began slowly, almost cautiously.
I didn’t return with confidence or clarity—
I returned with uncertainty, with hesitation, with doubt still very much present.

But I started anyway.

At first, it felt unfamiliar.
Even uncomfortable.

I wasn’t trying to make something “good.”
I was just trying to stay.

To sit with the process without walking away from it again.

And somewhere in that, things began to shift.

Not because I found answers,
but because I stopped needing them straight away.

Painting became a space where I didn’t have to perform,
or fit into anything,
or prove that I knew what I was doing.

It allowed me to be honest in a way I hadn’t been for a long time.

Through colour, through form, through quiet repetition,
I started to recognise parts of myself that had been set aside.

Not lost—just waiting.

I think for a long time, I believed that becoming an artist
meant having certainty.

Now I understand it differently.

It’s not about arriving somewhere clear or resolved.
It’s about staying with what feels true, even when it’s unclear.

I’m still learning how to do that.

Still finding my way back, again and again.

But this time, I’m not leaving it behind.

Amy Kim
Melbourne-based contemporary abstract artist
Exploring memory, connection, and the in-between