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I’m excited to announce that, starting Thursday 28th May, I’ll be helping facilitate a new creative wellbeing space in collaboration with ACRE Community Wellbeing Hub @acrereading

“Art From the Heart” is a creative space for expression, exploration, and connection through art.

These sessions are open to everyone, whether you’re a complete beginner, experienced artist, or simply someone looking for a relaxed and supportive environment to create, reflect, and connect with others.

The sessions will include:

• Painting & drawing activities
• Creative expression exercises
• Group collaboration
• A safe and supportive environment

Creativity has always been deeply connected to wellbeing for me. Art can be more than just making images. It can be a way to express thoughts and emotions that are difficult to put into words. A way to slow down, explore, heal, connect, and simply create without pressure or judgment.

📍 ACRE Wellbeing Hub
344 Oxford Road, Reading, RG30 1AF

🗓 Thursdays
⏰ 11:00 – 13:00

For registration or any information:
📧 info@acre-reading.org

I’m genuinely looking forward to building this space together and seeing where it grows.
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#ArtFromTheHeart #CreativeWellbeing #ReadingUK #CommunityArt #MentalHealthAwareness #CreativeExpression #ArtWorkshop #Wellbeing #Painting #Drawing #SilvanosArt

I’m happy to announce that, in collaboration with @acrereading , I’ll be helping create a space for creative expression, exploration, and growth through art..

These sessions are about more than just painting or drawing.

They’re about overcoming the fear that stops many people from creating in the first place.

Fear of failure.
Fear of judgment.
Fear of not being “good enough.”
Fear of making mistakes.

Because mistakes are part of the process.
Exploration is part of the process.
Freedom is part of the process.

The goal is to create an environment where people can let go of perfection, express themselves freely, experiment, and reconnect with creativity without pressure.

Recently, I brought this painting along to one of the sessions, and someone asked me about the meaning behind it.

The eye at the top represents systems of control, manipulation, fear, and surveillance — the forces that attempt to shape, direct and puppet people from the shadows.

The strings represent attachment and control.

One figure is still trapped within those strings.

The other has cut themselves free and is reaching out to hand over the scissors.

Because freedom cannot be forced onto someone.

You can offer the tools.
You can share knowledge.
You can open the door.

But each person must choose for themselves whether they remain controlled by fear… or cut the strings.

In many ways, creativity itself becomes an act of reclaiming that freedom.

No perfection.
No pretending.
No fear of getting it wrong.

Just expression.
Just honesty.
Just the courage to begin.

We’ll be continuing these creative sessions at ACRE Community Centre, with more information coming soon once details are fully confirmed.

If you’re interested in taking part, have any questions, or would like to share ideas or input, I’d love to hear from you.
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Picture by @skylymyt.uk

Kissed by a Rose on the Grey - acrylic on canvas 🖌️🎨

I was going through some of my old paintings and came across this piece again from many years ago.
At the time, I remember listening to Kiss from a Rose by Seal while painting it, and somehow the feeling of that song found its way into the canvas.
Looking back at it now, I can still feel that atmosphere inside it.
The contrast between the grayscale surroundings and the rose itself.
Beauty emerging through darkness.
Warmth inside coldness.
Something alive pushing through emotional fog.
There’s something haunting and peaceful about it at the same time.
I think that’s why this painting still speaks to me years later.
It reminds me that even during grey seasons of life, something within us still tries to bloom.

Eye see… a wonderful world

We often speak about the world as if it exists somewhere outside of us.
As if we stand here… and the world is over there.
Nature.
The environment.
The planet.
Something separate.

But that separation is an illusion.

We are not apart from the world.
We are a part of the world.

The air filling our lungs was once moving through forests.
The water flowing through our veins has travelled through rivers, clouds, and oceans.
The elements that form our bodies were forged in the same ancient processes that shaped mountains, soil, and stars.

The world is not something we simply observe.
It is something we belong to.

The same forces that shape the land shape us.
The same light that rises over the horizon every morning is the light that allows us to see at all.

In that sense, this eye is not watching the world from above.
It is the world becoming aware of itself.

The river reflects the eye because the boundary between observer and landscape dissolves.
The path winds through the land the same way experience winds through our lives.
The tree roots into the soil just as we are rooted into the same living system.
Everything is connected through the same unfolding story.

We are not separate witnesses to existence.
We are existence… experiencing itself.
And if we are part of the world, then we carry a responsibility to care for the very system that gives us life.

When we begin to see that clearly, the world changes.

Or perhaps the world was always this beautiful.
We simply needed to learn how to see.
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Eye see… a wonderful world - acrylic on canvas painting.🖌️🎨🖼️

Music: What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong 🌍👁️✨

I had the opportunity to speak at the Community Annual Health Inequalities Conference held at the Reading Civic Council Chambers. My thanks to the organisers and partners, especially @utulivurdg Utulivu Women’s Group, @acrereading ACRE, and everyone involved, for creating a space where communities can speak openly about the realities people are facing.

Some time before the event, I saw a post celebrating a multi-million pound investment into refurbishing the civic building. Yet at the same time, many of the people I speak to, myself included, have experienced public services becoming harder to access, more fragmented, and increasingly difficult to navigate.

That contradiction stayed with me.
Honestly, it made me angry.

Anger can be destructive, or it can be turned into something honest and constructive.

So I wrote a speech and delivered it inside the very building I was speaking about.

Because when something clearly isn’t right, silence doesn’t improve it.

Too often people stay quiet, not because they don’t see the problem, but because speaking honestly can feel uncomfortable or risky.

But systems don’t improve through silence.

They improve when people find the courage to say what they honestly see, and the strength to do something about it.

So here is the speech in full.

Look closer... The Matrix is everywhere.
Unfortunately, nobody can be told what it is.
You have to see it for yourself.
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Wake up - Acrylic on canvas painting🎨🖌
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#wakeup #thematrix #contemporarypainting #symbolicart #conceptualart

We’re taught to think of it as logic vs emotion.
As if clarity requires suppression.

What if that’s the wrong framing?

What if emotion gives us the signal…
and logic helps us decide what to do with it?

What if it's about integration instead of opposition?

What do you think?
Do you see them as separate competitive entities
or integrated collaborative systems?

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#emotionalintelligence #criticalthinking #selfawareness #integration #mindsetshift

Divide and conquer only works when people forget
we’re all standing on the same ground.

This is a reminder.

Scroll through social media and it is saturated with doom. Crisis after crisis. Fear layered on fear.
Yes—there are things we must be aware of.
But fear is also being manufactured, amplified, and weaponised.
Because a frightened mind is easier to steer.
Easier to manipulate.
Easier to indoctrinate.
Fear creates followers.
And fear gives rise to those who would crown themselves leaders of thought.
This painting is a refusal of that.
The bars are the systems, the narratives, the pressures that try to imprison us.
The forces that try to strip us down.
Reduce us.
Break us.
Turn us into nothing more than bones.
But even as a skeleton, there is colour.
There is life.
There is resistance.
The bars are not accepted.
They are pulled apart.
This is rebellion against reduction.
A fight for courage.
A declaration that even when everything is taken, something essential remains.
No matter how much you try to trap us,
we will not be trapped.
No matter how much you try to destroy us,
we will not be destroyed.
No matter how much you try to let us waste away,
we will not disappear.
We remain.
We endure.
We are.
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#artasresistance #manufacturedfear #weaponisedfear #psychologicalfreedom
#truthinart #consciousart #philosophicalart #symbolicart #darkart #surrealart #figurativeart #acrylicpainting #contemporarypainting #artwithamessage #mentalrebellion #defiance
#endurance #resilience #weendure #weare #silvanosart

Stillness is not what happens when nothing moves.
It is what happens when everything is held in balance
and allowed to remain.

What you read as silence
is not emptiness.
It is patience.
It is restraint.
It is discipline.

I am holding the sky
without letting it fall.
I am holding the water
without drowning in it.
I am holding the memory of trees
long after their outlines have softened,
long after the seasons stopped asking questions.

Nothing here is gone.
Nothing here has been lost.
What remains has simply learned
how to exist without demanding attention.

You mistake stillness for absence
because you are trained to look for spectacle.
You are trained to trust only what announces itself.
But equilibrium does not announce.
It does not beg to be witnessed.
It remains quietly,
intact.
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Acrylic on cardboard painting
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#acrylicpainting
#contemporaryart
#originalartwork
#abstractlandscape
#minimalart
#quietart
#silvanosart

I’ve been reaching for the light while moving through the dark,
and painting these colourful pieces is one way I’ve found strength to keep moving forward.

Sometimes, a song arrives at exactly the right moment.

I was feeling really low when I heard this one,
and it moved me enough to dance through the tears.
This painting carries that feeling —
the elephant as gentle strength:
ancient and wise, holding memory without being trapped by it.
Powerful yet soft.
Playful, joyful, full of love.
A reminder that strength doesn’t have to be heavy,
and that light can still move us, even when it’s found in the dark.
I wanted to share a piece of that feeling with you.

🎵 Sapphire — Ed Sheeran
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#SilvanosArt #ContemporaryArt #OriginalArt #FineArtPainting #ArtForSale ArtCollector CollectArt ExpressiveArt EmotionalArt SymbolicArt ElephantArt ColourfulArt ModernPainting EmergingArtist

I’ve been reaching for the light while moving through the dark,
and painting these colourful pieces is one way I’ve found strength to keep moving forward.

Sometimes, a song arrives at exactly the right moment.

I was feeling really low when I heard this one,
and it moved me enough to dance through the tears.
This painting carries that feeling —
the elephant as gentle strength:
ancient and wise, holding memory without being trapped by it.
Powerful yet soft.
Playful, joyful, full of love.
A reminder that strength doesn’t have to be heavy,
and that light can still move us, even when it’s found in the dark.
I wanted to share a piece of that feeling with you.

🎵 Sapphire — Ed Sheeran
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.
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#SilvanosArt #ContemporaryArt #OriginalArt #FineArtPainting #ArtForSale ArtCollector CollectArt ExpressiveArt EmotionalArt SymbolicArt ElephantArt ColourfulArt ModernPainting EmergingArtist

Stories are rarely told by the ones being burned.
Dragons become the villain because they embody what humans fear but refuse to confront in themselves:
power without permission,
independence without apology,
fire that cannot be owned.
A dragon does not ask to rule.
It exists. (Metaphorically speaking.)
And that alone is threatening.
So the tale is rewritten.
If a dragon guards its hoard, it is called greedy —
yet humans drain entire lands and call it progress.
If a dragon defends its territory, it is called savage —
yet armies march across continents and call it destiny.
If a dragon destroys indiscriminately, it is called monstrous —
yet humans perfect destruction, systematise it,
incinerating nations, futures, and ecosystems,
and call it necessity.
The dragon becomes the excuse.
Label it evil, and the sword feels righteous.
Call it a beast, and genoc!de becomes heroism.
Paint fear as courage, and violence wears a crown.
Most “heroes” aren’t brave —
they’re afraid together.
And collective fear is the most dangerous creature ever created.
Dragons are hunted not because they are evil,
but because they are mirrors.
They reflect raw truth:
that power exists beyond control,
that nature does not negotiate,
that fire can both destroy and illuminate.
And humans, rather than learning to stand in the presence of that truth,
chose to kill it —
then write songs about their virtue.
Extinction wrapped in myth.
Atrocity framed as triumph.
Perhaps the real monster was never the dragon.
Perhaps the real horror is a species so afraid of what it cannot dominate
that it convinces itself the act of destruction was noble.
And maybe — just maybe —
the dragon wasn’t guarding gold.
It was guarding a boundary.
And humanity has never respected those very well.
.
I see fire - acrylic on canvas painting (part 2)

Stories are rarely told by the ones being burned.
Dragons become the villain because they embody what humans fear but refuse to confront in themselves:
power without permission,
independence without apology,
fire that cannot be owned.
A dragon does not ask to rule.
It exists. (Metaphorically speaking.)
And that alone is threatening.
So the tale is rewritten.
If a dragon guards its hoard, it is called greedy —
yet humans drain entire lands and call it progress.
If a dragon defends its territory, it is called savage —
yet armies march across continents and call it destiny.
If a dragon destroys indiscriminately, it is called monstrous —
yet humans perfect destruction, systematise it,
incinerating nations, futures, and ecosystems,
and call it necessity.
The dragon becomes the excuse.
Label it evil, and the sword feels righteous.
Call it a beast, and genoc!de becomes heroism.
Paint fear as courage, and violence wears a crown.
Most “heroes” aren’t brave —
they’re afraid together.
And collective fear is the most dangerous creature ever created.
Dragons are hunted not because they are evil,
but because they are mirrors.
They reflect raw truth:
that power exists beyond control,
that nature does not negotiate,
that fire can both destroy and illuminate.
And humans, rather than learning to stand in the presence of that truth,
chose to kill it —
then write songs about their virtue.
Extinction wrapped in myth.
Atrocity framed as triumph.
Perhaps the real monster was never the dragon.
Perhaps the real horror is a species so afraid of what it cannot dominate
that it convinces itself the act of destruction was noble.
And maybe — just maybe —
the dragon wasn’t guarding gold.
It was guarding a boundary.
And humanity has never respected those very well.
.
I see fire - acrylic on canvas painting (part 2)

Stories are rarely told by the ones being burned.
Dragons become the villain because they embody what humans fear but refuse to confront in themselves:
power without permission,
independence without apology,
fire that cannot be owned.
A dragon does not ask to rule.
It exists. (Metaphorically speaking.)
And that alone is threatening.
So the tale is rewritten.
If a dragon guards its hoard, it is called greedy —
yet humans drain entire lands and call it progress.
If a dragon defends its territory, it is called savage —
yet armies march across continents and call it destiny.
If a dragon destroys indiscriminately, it is called monstrous —
yet humans perfect destruction, systematise it,
incinerating nations, futures, and ecosystems,
and call it necessity.
The dragon becomes the excuse.
Label it evil, and the sword feels righteous.
Call it a beast, and genoc!de becomes heroism.
Paint fear as courage, and violence wears a crown.
Most “heroes” aren’t brave —
they’re afraid together.
And collective fear is the most dangerous creature ever created.
Dragons are hunted not because they are evil,
but because they are mirrors.
They reflect raw truth:
that power exists beyond control,
that nature does not negotiate,
that fire can both destroy and illuminate.
And humans, rather than learning to stand in the presence of that truth,
chose to kill it —
then write songs about their virtue.
Extinction wrapped in myth.
Atrocity framed as triumph.
Perhaps the real monster was never the dragon.
Perhaps the real horror is a species so afraid of what it cannot dominate
that it convinces itself the act of destruction was noble.
And maybe — just maybe —
the dragon wasn’t guarding gold.
It was guarding a boundary.
And humanity has never respected those very well.
.
I see fire - acrylic on canvas painting (part 2)

Stories are rarely told by the ones being burned.
Dragons become the villain because they embody what humans fear but refuse to confront in themselves:
power without permission,
independence without apology,
fire that cannot be owned.
A dragon does not ask to rule.
It exists. (Metaphorically speaking.)
And that alone is threatening.
So the tale is rewritten.
If a dragon guards its hoard, it is called greedy —
yet humans drain entire lands and call it progress.
If a dragon defends its territory, it is called savage —
yet armies march across continents and call it destiny.
If a dragon destroys indiscriminately, it is called monstrous —
yet humans perfect destruction, systematise it,
incinerating nations, futures, and ecosystems,
and call it necessity.
The dragon becomes the excuse.
Label it evil, and the sword feels righteous.
Call it a beast, and genoc!de becomes heroism.
Paint fear as courage, and violence wears a crown.
Most “heroes” aren’t brave —
they’re afraid together.
And collective fear is the most dangerous creature ever created.
Dragons are hunted not because they are evil,
but because they are mirrors.
They reflect raw truth:
that power exists beyond control,
that nature does not negotiate,
that fire can both destroy and illuminate.
And humans, rather than learning to stand in the presence of that truth,
chose to kill it —
then write songs about their virtue.
Extinction wrapped in myth.
Atrocity framed as triumph.
Perhaps the real monster was never the dragon.
Perhaps the real horror is a species so afraid of what it cannot dominate
that it convinces itself the act of destruction was noble.
And maybe — just maybe —
the dragon wasn’t guarding gold.
It was guarding a boundary.
And humanity has never respected those very well.
.
I see fire - acrylic on canvas painting (part 2)