I paint people in their in-between moments — the pause between thoughts, the shift of light across skin, the stillness before motion returns. My work lives somewhere between realism and memory: familiar but slightly blurred, as if recalling a dream you can almost place.

I work mostly in acrylic on wood and canvas, layering color and texture until something honest begins to surface. Sometimes I render faces in detail; sometimes I leave them blank, letting gesture and shadow do the talking.

Before I painted, I wrote songs from my Brooklyn apartment and performed in a band. That rhythm never left — it shows up in the cadence of brushstrokes, in repetition, in silence. Now based in San Francisco, I paint as a way of paying attention — to the people I love, the moments I miss, and the beauty that asks quietly to be seen.

Erin Wilsterman