In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger describes Dasein (Being-there) as something that is not static but constantly shifting and interconnected. Human existence is not a fixed point but a process of movement, transformation, and self-shaping within the world. This resonates with my experience of sketching during my commutes—what I captured was not a static portrait of individuals, but rather their momentary postures and states of being, their “becoming” in time.

Within this state of movement, the relationship between individuals and their environment is also in flux. Passengers in transit often adopt unconscious expressions and body language, lost in thought or simply disengaged. These fleeting, unguarded moments reveal a reality unmediated by social performance. Heidegger’s concept of “Being-in-the-world” suggests that human existence is not independent of the world but rather intricately woven into it. A subway car, though enclosed and moving, is both a transient shared space and a microcosm of interwoven interactions, yet such moments of shared presence often go unnoticed.

These commuter sketches are not just about capturing presence—they are also an inquiry into time. Time, within these works, is both a fleeting instance and an accumulated process—each sketch records a moment, but through layering and transformation into colour studies and oil paintings, time is made tangible, materialised into an evolving artistic progression. This connects to Henri Bergson’s concept of la durée (duration)—time is not a sequence of discrete moments but a continuous flow of qualitative change. The sketches I created were both immediate impressions and future premonitions, carrying within them traces of the present while gesturing toward the paintings they would become.

Through this continuous practice, I came to realise that human existence is not merely “being there” but is perceived, interpreted, and defined through movement and transition. In these countless commutes and sketches, I was not only observing others but also re-examining myself—how do we establish our existence in shifting temporal and spatial conditions? In spaces of movement and transition, how does one maintain a sense of self?

Ultimately, my work is not just about painting—it is an existential inquiry. Throughout the process of sketching and transforming these moments into oil paintings, I continually asked: How do we anchor ourselves in time and space? When we exist in a state of transition and migration, do we still possess a stable sense of being? Or is the very nature of our existence defined by the continuous process of becoming?