The word on the floor is Zor — Urdu for force, for push, for the exertion we apply when we want something to move. But to read it, you have to look from the right angle. The letters are elongated, stretched until they become almost entirely abstract — forms lying on the ground that reveal their meaning only to those who stop, shift position, and look again.

Which is its own kind of answer to the question the work is asking.

Why do we push? Not always toward something clear, not always for reasons we can name — but we push nonetheless. Toward achievement, toward recognition, toward whatever it is that everyone else seems to be moving toward. The work does not condemn this. It simply slows it down. It places Zor on the floor, horizontal and still, and asks you to pause long enough to even recognise what you are looking at.

There is something in that pause. Before the next push, before the next effort — just a moment of standing with the word, looking at it from the side, seeing it for what it actually is.

Push | Acrylics on wood | 60 x 7 x 3 inches approx | 2018