In my family we say: If you don’t see a rhinoceros in the room, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I later learned it echoes a philosophical debate about the certainty of absence.

I painted this by asking: what if my rhinoceros is a goal only I can see? Then comes the private struggle: am I mistaken, or do others simply not see? One voice wants to agree with the crowd, another to forget, a third tells me to trust myself. I see that others’ certainty doesn’t make the goal impossible, nor my vision guaranteed.

I laid the skin in layered cold blue folds to keep you looking. The wounds on the legs mark the price of hesitation, the dragonfly is frozen in expectation, the bird is in the grass. I wanted to convey the seconds before the decision, when the air is still but the outcome is near.

If I give up, the rhinoceros dies, and so does the part of me that can see. How hard it is to keep trusting yourself when you’re the only one who sees rhinoceros in the room

Digitally hand drawn | 2025