The Story Behind Strength from Within
Back in 2024, I created a 100cm × 100cm acrylic painting titled Strength from Within for my solo exhibition at Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery.
The work explored themes of inner pressure, vulnerability, and resilience — ideas that run through much of what I create. Out of everything in that show, it was one of the pieces I felt most connected to.
There was something about the balance between realism and abstraction that felt resolved. The piercing blue eye held a kind of quiet intensity — direct, but controlled. Throughout the exhibition, it drew a strong response from visitors, with many taking the time to talk about how it resonated with them.
Which made it all the more surprising when it didn’t sell.
When a Painting Doesn’t Find a Home
After the exhibition ended, the work came back with me to the studio.
That moment — when something you believe in doesn’t find a place straight away — is a familiar one. It brings with it a particular kind of doubt, even if you try to ignore it.
Over time, though, I’ve learned that not everything moves at the same pace. Some pieces find their way quickly. Others take longer. The important part is allowing them that time, rather than forcing an outcome.
How Things Start to Shift
Opportunities don’t always arrive in obvious ways.
In this case, it came through an email — from the husband of an artist I’m connected with on Facebook. They run a gallery in Hamburg called Antikult Gallery, and were interested in showing the work.
The conversation was straightforward. They wanted to begin with Strength from Within, and they were happy to organise the logistics.
What had been sitting quietly in the studio was suddenly heading somewhere new.
Letting the Work Travel
Shipping artwork internationally always carries a certain level of anxiety.
The painting was carefully packed following their instructions, and collected by DHL. From that point on, it’s largely out of your hands — which is never the most comfortable place to be.
A few days later, the message came through: it had arrived safely in Hamburg.
That was enough to move on and get back to work.
The Moment You Don’t Expect
About a month later, another email arrived.
The painting had sold.
After everything — the time in the studio, the exhibition, the return home — it had found its place, just not where I initially expected.
It’s now in a private collection in Germany, and the gallery has since talked about including my work in future exhibitions and art fairs.
What This Actually Taught Me
There’s a tendency to think that selling work is about immediacy — putting something out and hoping for a quick result.
In reality, it’s more about momentum.
If you’re thinking about how to sell art internationally, it rarely comes down to one moment. It’s the accumulation of things:
- making the work
- sharing it
- building connections
- staying visible
And then, at some point, something shifts.
Not always where you expect.
The Long Game
One of the more difficult parts of this process is the silence in between.
The periods where nothing obvious is happening.
It’s easy to interpret that as a lack of progress, but more often it’s just part of how things unfold. Work travels further than you realise. People see it without saying anything. Opportunities build quietly in the background.
This piece is a good example of that.
What started as part of a body of work eventually found its way somewhere completely different — not through chasing, but through continuation. Strength from Within is still part of that wider journey, and you can see it alongside other pieces that have developed from the same ideas.
Keep Showing Up
It’s difficult to explain just how much patience is required in this process.
From the outside, it can look uncertain or even unproductive. But from within it, there’s a different kind of movement — slower, less visible, but just as real.
The silence doesn’t mean failure.
It usually just means the right person hasn’t seen the work yet.
Where It Lands
In the end, Strength from Within found its place.
Not quickly. Not locally. But in a way that opened new doors.
That’s often how it happens.
So the focus stays the same — keep painting, keep sharing, keep turning up. Because the result isn’t always immediate, but it’s rarely static either.
