Jamie Romanet's bleached and ghostly paintings that stare deep into our souls

In fact, the American artist creates a small 20x20cm portrait a day, based on the Persian poet's wisdom. "I look to excavate from within various anxieties, fears, stored thoughts and experiences, both hidden and realised," explains Jamie.

"Using a small format, I am interested in drawing the viewer into an intimate world where they may greet themselves, and their other forms, to examine how we are different, and also the same. How we are pulled to ourselves, and away from ourselves? And what are our individual and collective relationships to one and other?"

Often the images have been bleached away so the remaining stain, or ghost image, can be built upon. Diving into this process, Jamie explores ideas of attachment and permanence. What is essential to the spirit and how much beyond the physical do we spiritually inherit from our past and our ancestors? What is our common or essential human story?

"Another aspect of my practice is charting my past and bringing forth my present through paint. Bearing witness to my experience as a mother and woman in today’s society, while also searching my conscious and unconscious mind as a means of self-actualisation and ultimately also as a means to connect to the viewer."

Born in 1978 in Connecticut, Jamie Romanet is an American artist currently living in Paris. Jamie studied both Poetry and Geography as an undergraduate in Connecticut, and then went on to get a post-baccalaureate certificate in Painting in Florence, Italy. Her work aims to be both deeply personal and universal. Discover more on Instagram.