Sitting With the Unresolved

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning | Ningjada   Sydney, April 9, 2026, 2–3 min read

Excerpt

A reflection on the unfinished spaces in art — where misunderstandings, revelations, and quiet truths meet.  

Sitting With the Unresolved

There are moments in my practice when I feel misunderstood — not in a dramatic way, but in that soft, private ache artists know well. Someone looks at my work and names something I didn’t intend. Or they miss what feels obvious to me. Or they see a story I never placed there.

For a long time, this made me sad. Now, it makes me curious.

I’ve learned that when someone responds to my work, they’re not only seeing the painting — they’re seeing themselves. Their memories, their longings, their fears, their unfinished parts. We all do this. We meet art with whatever we’re carrying.

So instead of defending my intention, I listen. Because in their interpretation is a truth I may never have found on my own.

The image above is a small fragment of HIRAYA, one of the twelve panels that form the whole. It’s a section that has always felt slightly unfinished to me — not incomplete, but unresolved. A place where the painting is still thinking, still forming, still deciding what it wants to become.

When I sit with this detail, I realise it mirrors something in me.

There is a stage in every painting where nothing is certain.

Edges blur. Forms hesitate. Colours shift without committing.

It’s the part of the process that feels the most vulnerable — because it reveals my mind before I’ve shaped it.

This is the space where misunderstandings happen. This is also the space where revelations happen.

The Unfinished as Teacher

I used to rush through this stage, wanting clarity, wanting resolution. But the more I paint, the more I understand that the unfinished is not a flaw — it’s a teacher.

It teaches me to pause. To listen. To let the work breathe before I decide what it needs. To trust that not everything must be defined immediately.

The unresolved is where the painting and I meet as equals. Neither of us forcing the other. Both of us learning.

A Conversation Without Persuasion

When someone tells me how they see this detail — or any part of my work — I no longer take it as a misreading. I take it as a conversation, a brief moment where their inner world touches mine.

This is how I love — through presence, not persuasion.

This is how I speak — through image, rhythm, and silence.

And somewhere between my intention and your response is a space we don’t need to control.

A space that, like this fragment of HIRAYA, stays open.

Unfinished.

Alive.

A thought I’ll return to in time.