About JW Nuances

My history

Although I have always been attracted to the arts, my first love was music, particularly the piano. Painting came later, sort of accidently. I participated to a painting workshop in a medical centre during a high school internship and fell in love with it. For a few years, I mostly painted based on pictures I would find on the internet and twist my way to make them unique.

Once I moved to the Netherlands for university, I started to paint following my instinct, without a plan which was quite scary but exciting. I enjoyed the experimental aspect of it as I was discovering a new way of creating. Then I went through tough times. I was struggling with my mental health because of two traumas and post-traumatic stress. On the bright side, it gave birth to a whole new set of paintings as I used painting as a way to cope, to express my emotions, and most importantly, to understand myself.

"This unexpected sudden understanding of a painting is one of the things I love the most with art, and more specifically the abstract artwork I create."

My process

A perfect example of how I paint and interpret my art is a painting I made a few months before the PTSDs got triggered (Transformation). I did not understand this painting for years, but it had patterns of colours that I unconsciously started using in some paintings a year after. Three years passed and on a random evening, its meaning appeared to me. This painting was showing me the process I would be going through the next few years and my transformation that would result from it. Understanding it helped me see how, unknowingly, I have painted pieces that relate to each other with a common language: the colours.

"While my creative process happens in the quiet of my home, I am drawn to the moments when you engage with my work."

Why I paint

I paint to externalise what I feel: to take what is heavy, unclear, or stuck inside me and place it somewhere I can actually look at. Sometimes it’s an emotion, sometimes an inner conflict, a memory or a situation I don’t fully understand yet. When words aren’t enough, painting becomes my way to process, release, and make sense of what I’m going through.

One of the reasons I keep sharing my work is because I love what happens when someone else looks at it and sees something I never expected. Because my paintings are often abstract, people don’t just “understand” them; they meet them, with their own story, sensitivity, and memories. And the interpretations I hear are always different, always surprising, and always meaningful.

Sometimes, when I share the intention or the feeling behind a painting, it creates another kind of connection. A viewer recognises themselves in it and suddenly they feel less alone in what they’re carrying. If a painting can help someone feel seen, or help them name something inside themselves, or even just open a space to reflect on their own experience… that’s priceless to me.