Literature

There’s a boy at the table who says, ‘I don’t get it.’ No one turns to explain. No one turns away. The conversation continues, full of light, noise, and half-heard jokes. He stays. He is part of it, not despite his confusion, but with it.

This painting might be the quiet heart of the exhibition. Across these works, whether in the still tension of Before the Beginning Ends, the dignity of The Last Tide, or the ambiguity of Incognito, the thread that binds them is not certainty, but grace. The ability to sit beside someone, not to decode them or demand clarity, but simply to remain close, to accept what is seen and not assumed, presumed. To leave bias and to see how we are similar, not focus on the differences.

That ethos shapes not only Paul Wright’s approach to portraiture, but also our studio’s broader inquiry, especially as we begin to work with technology. The question isn’t how we can make machines more like humans, or even how humans can better use machines. It’s more intimate than that. It’s about attention. About how we model care, not through control or comprehension, but through how we choose to look and how long we stay.

Paul’s brushwork is, in many ways, a metaphor for this. His paintings never overstate. The strokes are fast, but observant. They carry emotional truth without fixing identity. In I Don’t Get It, the drips and daubs of pigment around the table are joyful, even chaotic, but always tender. No figure dominates. Every individual is allowed their own light. The palette, too, speaks volumes. There’s the electric optimism of pinks and yellows; the grounding warmth of ochre and red; the scattering of unexpected greens, like glimpses of the outside world. Everything feels alive, not perfectly resolved, but richly lived.

As a studio working at the edge of art and technology, we return to this idea: that clarity is not the same as connection. We are not seeking to solve the human condition, or even simulate it. We are trying to honour it with all its mess, doubt, pauses, and pluralities. To build tools, and experiences, that allow people to see one another with softness, not speed. To choose kindness by default.

That’s what I Don’t Get It offers. Not a moral, not a manifesto — just a moment. A boy. A table. A community that continues, with him. If we can carry that principle into AI, into art, into healthcare and political structures, a reflection of how we could live with one another, then maybe we’re doing something worthwhile.