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Writer -Cheryl Quejada Canning|Ningjada Sydney, 6 April 2026 Excerpt A look at the quiet space between artworks — the pause where intuition, memory, and meaning begin to form. Why I Choose to Remove Rather Than Add There are things we strip away in order to feel more like ourselves. For some, it’s noise. For others, clutter. For me, it has always been scent. I’ve never been drawn to perfume or fragranced products — not because of sensitivity alone, but because they feel like something placed on top of what is already true. A layer that alters rather than reveals. Over time, I realised this instinct shows up in my work as well. When I paint, I’m not trying to decorate a surface. I’m responding — to material, to memory, to something internal that doesn’t always have language. I build layers, yes, but not to embellish. I layer to uncover. To arrive. A barefaced portrait of the artist wearing an accent necklace made of organic materials from the Philippines — a piece she has owned for over a decade. Behind her hangs Earth Mother, an early oil painting that reflects her connection to land, memory, and quiet strength. Often, the most important decision is not what I add, but what I remove. There is a moment when too much becomes noise: too many marks, too much colour, too much intention. That is when I stop. Or scrape back. Or let the work breathe. The space between decisions — that is where the painting begins to speak. In Between Paintings is about that space. The pause. The adjustment. The quiet knowing that something is either true or not. Choosing to remove is not about emptiness. It is about presence — the kind that allows the real thing to reveal itself. For now, this is where I pause.

Cheryl Quejada Canning|Sydney 04 May 2026 — 2‑minute read Excerpt Art has never been about decoration for me. It is the place where my inner world becomes visible — where memory, duty, culture, sacrifice, and love gather into colour and form. My canvas is where I speak the truths I cannot always say out loud, and where the complexity of my life finds clarity, honesty, and meaning. Art as the Language of My Heart There are many reasons an artist chooses a canvas, but for me, art has never been about decoration or the glitter of money. I didn’t come to painting to produce something pretty, or to please the market, or to chase trends. I chose art because it is the only platform where I can express concepts that live beneath the surface — ideas I hope people can visualize, relate to, and share. Some of these ideas are not popular. Some challenge comfort. Some ask people to look at themselves more honestly than they expect. But I would rather create work that carries meaning than paint a scene that is visually pleasing yet empty in its content. If money were my driving force, I could confront the canvas without thinking, produce something nice, and call it a day. But that has never been my path. Title: Uncomfortable Truths, 2019 © Ningjada, Acrylic on Canvas, 12 x 16 inches. A work created during a period of exploring ideas beyond aesthetic comfort. My art is the language of my heart. It is where my inner world becomes visible. It is where I speak truths I cannot always say out loud. Every piece I create is shaped by lived experience — memory, duty, culture, sacrifice, awakening. I paint from the places inside me that have been stretched, broken, rebuilt, and transformed. I paint from the parts of myself that learned to survive through responsibility, and the parts that learned to feel again through love. Love was the catalyst that brought my art back to life. Duty is the container that holds my life together. Art is where both truths can exist without contradiction. When I paint, I am not choosing between the two. I am integrating them. I am honouring the complexity of a life shaped by responsibility and awakened by feeling. I am giving form to the things that cannot be spoken, the things that live in the quiet spaces of the heart. Art is not my escape. Art is my clarity. Art is my truth. And as long as I have a canvas, I will continue to create work that carries meaning — work that reflects the depth of my inner world, the courage of my choices, and the honesty of a life lived between love and duty. There is more to say, but that is for the next canvas.

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney 26 June 2026 a 2-minute read Excerpt: My art began in the pages of the books I read as a child — stories of courage, metaphor, memory, and meaning. I still paint the way I was taught to read: slowly, carefully, with attention to what lies beneath. Cartographies II (Artwork No. S01584) Exhibited at the Incognito Art Show, Carriageworks 24–26 June 2026 (Exhibition) 27 June–5 July 2026 (Sale) The Stories That Shaped My Heart I didn’t realise it when I was young, but my life as a painter began long before I ever touched a brush. It began with books — heavy, complicated, symbolic books that shaped the way I think, feel, and interpret the world. My mother, a schoolteacher and an English literature teacher, believed that children should read stories that build character. She didn’t hand us fairy tales. She handed us lessons. She believed reading was a form of training — a way of learning how to understand people, choices, consequences, and the quiet moral threads that run through every life. At school, we were drilled in reading comprehension. Not the simple kind — the deep kind. We were taught to break down paragraphs, identify themes, understand tone, and follow the emotional logic of a text. Because of that, even at twelve or fifteen, I could understand what I was reading. I wasn’t intimidated by long books or complex ideas. I was trained to enter a story and find its meaning. When I was twelve, my mother bought me War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk. It was the first serious book I ever read. I didn’t grasp everything, but I understood enough: that stories carry weight, that human decisions ripple outward, and that literature is a mirror that shows us who we are and who we might become. Around the same time, she also bought me and my sister Edgar Allan Poe’s Great Tales and Poems. We were far too young for the darkness of it, but we loved it anyway. Poe taught me something different — that atmosphere is a character, that emotion has texture, and that the human mind is its own landscape. Even now, when I paint shadows or quiet tension, I can feel the echo of those early readings. I had the privilege of being schooled by my parents in a private school where literature was treated as a serious discipline. We didn’t just read stories — we interpreted them, dissected them, lived inside them. We studied José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, learning how satire, symbolism, and moral courage could be woven into a nation’s story. We analysed Florante at Laura by Francisco Balagtas, where metaphor and emotion were crafted with precision. We read Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Biag ni Lam-ang by Pedro Bukaneg — the epic of my own ancestors — and Paradise Lost by John Milton. These were not optional readings; they were part of our formation. They taught us to read deeply, to question, to interpret, and to understand that literature is never passive. It demands attention, empathy, and a willingness to see beneath the surface. By fifteen, my curriculum had me studying Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Dante’s Inferno, and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. But we weren’t just reading them. We were taught to interpret them — to break down stanzas, trace metaphors, identify symbols, and extract moral lessons. We learned to ask, what is the author really saying, what is the symbol doing here, what truth is being revealed, and what moral tension is unfolding That training didn’t stay in the classroom. It became the way I saw the world. Every moment became a stanza. Every memory became a metaphor. Every experience carried a lesson waiting to be uncovered. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of my artistic process. Today, when I paint, I still think like that fifteen‑year‑old girl reading Homer and Dante. I look beneath the surface of things. I search for the emotional architecture of a scene. I ask myself - what is this painting really about, what memory is speaking, what truth is hiding here. and what moral or emotional thread is present. A flower on the ground is never just a flower. A colour is never just a colour. A moment is never just a moment. Everything carries a story. Everything carries a symbol. Everything carries meaning. This is why my paintings feel like narratives, and why my blog reads like quiet reflections. I paint the way I was taught to read. I write the way I was taught to interpret. My mother’s voice — “Anything you think of you can do when you put your mind into it” — still sits at the centre of my practice. She wasn’t just teaching discipline. She was teaching me to trust my inner world. The books of my childhood didn’t just entertain me. They trained my eyes. They shaped my thinking. They taught me how to see. And so, in between paintings, I return to the same quiet practice — reading the world the way I once read those books. Slowly, carefully, with attention to meaning. It is the same habit, just a different medium now. And so, I return to the canvas carrying all of this with me — the books, the lessons, the way of seeing. In between paintings, I keep learning how to read my own life a little more clearly.

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning | Sydney, May 2026 — 2‑minute read Excerpt I’ve always turned small moments into stories. Even now, a fallen flower on a footpath can open a whole world in me — and sometimes, that world becomes a painting. Marahuyo is one of those moments, born from noticing, remembering, and being quietly enchanted by life. An Artist Can Turn Anything Into a Story I’ve always believed that artists are born with a strange little gift — we can turn anything into a story. When I was a child, I made up narratives about everything I saw. If a beautiful bird landed near me, I instantly imagined where he came from: Ahh, he flew here looking for a butterfly, they talked, and then… My imagination never needed permission. It simply lived in me. I thought I would outgrow that habit, but here I am at 57, still doing the same thing. I see a dog barking at someone through a window, and suddenly I’m creating a whole backstory about their relationship. A picture, a moment, a tiny detail — it’s enough. Maybe that’s why I paint. Or maybe painting is just another way of telling the stories that never stop forming in my mind. When I travelled to Sea World with my sisters, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the corals. They were alive, glowing, breathing — and I felt a sudden sadness remembering the corals from the coastal area where I grew up. The ones I saw in aquariums later in life were lifeless, bleached, no longer part of the world they belonged to. That sadness stayed with me. Maybe that’s why I never liked receiving flowers. I love them, but I want them to live their full life in their own element, not cut short just to decorate a home or become a gift. Beauty deserves to breathe. One day, while walking along Glebe Point Road on my way to the library, I saw a tiny orange flower lying on the dirt. It was so small, so delicate, and yet it stopped me in my tracks. I picked it up gently — not plucked, not taken from its life — just found. And that little flower became the genesis of my painting MARAHUYO (2023). “To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wildflower.” — William Blake © Ningjada — MARAHUYO, 2023 Oil on Canvas Panel, 61 × 92 cm Named after a Tagalog word for the kind of enchantment that arrives in small discoveries, in learning, and in unexpected moments of falling in love. Marahuyo is an ancient Tagalog word meaning magic or fantasy, but it also speaks of being enchanted by discovery, by learning something new, or even by falling in love. That single fallen flower carried a whole story inside it, and that story became colour, movement, and memory on canvas. Maybe that’s the truth of who I am: someone who finds stories in small things, who listens to the quiet details of life, who believes that even a fallen flower can open a doorway into wonder. In the end, maybe this is what my work has always been about — the stories that rise from the smallest things, the quiet enchantments that wait in ordinary moments, the way a single fallen flower can open a doorway into colour, memory, and meaning. These are the spaces I paint from, the in‑between places where life whispers its magic before I even realise I’m listening. Somewhere in the in‑between, another quiet story is forming. I’ll meet it when it arrives.

Cheryl Quejada Canniong, Sydney 7 June 2026 Excerpt: Between paintings, there is always a pause — a quiet space where hesitation and possibility meet. I linger before every new canvas, feeling the weight of the first stroke long before it touches the surface. This waiting is part of the work. This stillness is where the next painting begins Title: First Stroke © Cheryl Quejada ‘Ningjada’ Canning, 2024 — soft pastel on A3 watercolour paper ". Created in the space between paintings, this work reflects the pause before creation — the quiet negotiation between hesitation and possibility that becomes the first stroke. First Stroke There is always a moment before a new painting when everything inside me goes still. People often imagine that artists begin with confidence — that we pick up a brush, choose a colour, and glide into the work as if guided by instinct alone. But the truth is quieter, slower, and far more human. The beginning is never easy. It is a negotiation between hesitation and desire, between fear and possibility. My poem The First Stroke came from that space — the long pause before creation, the breath held between what I imagine and what I am brave enough to begin. I linger. I wait. I circle the canvas like someone approaching a memory they’re not ready to touch. Sometimes I hold the brushes just to feel their weight. Sometimes I pick colours without knowing why. Sometimes I sit in front of the blank canvas until the silence becomes a kind of companion. This is the part of painting that no one sees — the part that happens in between the visible work. The part where the artist is not yet creating, but already changing. I’ve learned that beginnings are not about confidence. They are about surrender. The first stroke is not a mark on the canvas. It is a decision: to trust myself again. It is the moment I stop negotiating with fear and allow the work to pull me forward. It is the moment I accept that the painting will become what it needs to become, not what I try to control. And so, I wait — not out of uncertainty, but out of respect. Every painting deserves a thoughtful beginning. Every beginning deserves time. This is what it means to be an artist living in between paintings: to honour the pause, to listen to the silence, to let the next work arrive in its own time. Because the first stroke is never just the start of a painting. It is the start of me — again and again. Every pause has its purpose. I’ll meet the next one when it comes.

Writer: Cheryl Quejadas Canning, Sydney. 25 May 2026 a minute read. Excerpt: Some paintings begin with clarity, others with a feeling that refuses to leave. Salamisim grew from that quiet pull — a word, a poem, and the fragments that surfaced when I finally stopped to listen. SALAMISIM (2023) Some paintings begin with a clear direction. Others begin with a word that lingers long after you’ve read it. Salamisim was one of those — an Ilokano word for reflection that felt less like a definition and more like a familiar state I had been moving through quietly. Around that time, I was reading Burraga Gutya’s “The Way It Was and Shall Ever Be.” The poem didn’t give me an image. It gave me a shift — a subtle returning to something I thought I had already placed somewhere else. That’s usually how my process starts: not with a picture, but with a feeling that refuses to leave. Part 1 series of fragmented oil paintings based on a fictional character of the poem "They Way It Was and Shall Ever Be", in the book Yimbama by Burraga Gutya - a poem about love, hope and the cycle of life. Salamisim, 2023 ©Ningjada. Oil on Canvas. I found myself working in fragments. Not because I wanted to break anything apart, but because that was the only way the feeling arrived. A piece here, a gesture there, something remembered, something unresolved. The story behind these images is neat and close to my heart, but it doesn’t need to be told here. It lives inside the work, and that is enough. The accompanying collage is simply a trace of that moment — the way the paintings formed while I was sitting with the poem, the word, and the quiet that followed. It isn’t the subject of this entry. It’s just what was beside me while the process was unfolding. Salamisim reminded me that some paintings don’t begin with clarity. They begin with a quiet insistence — a feeling that returns until you finally give it a place on the canvas. There is more unfolding in the quiet — but that belongs to the next chapter.

Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney, 18 May 2026 1-minute read Excerpt A return to the quiet discipline of morning: carving space for art, honouring my time, and remembering the fearless child who always followed her curiosity. The Great Art of Chilling: Morning Sun, Soft Breath, and the World Waking Gently I’ve always been an early riser. Since I was a kid, the morning sun has had a way of pulling me out of sleep — that soft light seeping through the window, the quiet sound of someone sweeping with a walis tingting, the world slowly waking. There’s something sacred about those hours. They feel like a breath. But there was a long stretch of my life when mornings weren’t gentle at all. My days were spent working for survival — food on the table, tuition fees, bills, responsibilities that never paused. I woke up not to create, but to provide. My mornings belonged to duty, not to myself. Still, I consider myself lucky. One day, I woke up to a different kind of life — one that felt closer to the child I used to be. The same child who refused to take afternoon naps with my siblings during school breaks. While everyone slept, I would sneak out, wander, explore, play, get punished, and then do it again. That fearless curiosity never left me. It just waited for the right season to return. “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” — Mary Oliver A wild termite mushroom gathered in the 6 a.m. sun — a small miracle from our garden, glowing in the quiet of the morning. Now, as an adult, my creativity lives in the daytime. I intentionally carve out space for it — painting, contemplating, reading, sketching, or simply sitting with an idea until it reveals its shape. Morning is where my process begins. It’s where I settle my mind, breathe, and let the work find me. People say you have to be selfish if you want to be an artist. Maybe they’re right — but not in the way people imagine. Making art isn’t indulgence. It’s not escape. The “selfishness” they talk about is really obsession — that deep pull toward creating something honest. I’m obsessed with my art, yes, but creating isn’t selfishness in itself. It’s an act of love. Love for myself, because it keeps me whole. Love for the world around me, because every piece I make is my way of paying attention, of honouring what I see, feel, and remember. And so, I’m trying to master the great art of chilling in the best way I know how — through my art. Through slowing down, breathing, and letting the morning hold me long enough for ideas to rise gently, without force. The great art of chilling isn’t about doing nothing. It’s about being present enough to hear your own ideas. It’s breath, morning sun, and the quiet discipline of showing up for your creative life — finally, freely, and on your own terms. There is more to feel, more to make — but that belongs to another morning.

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney 12 May 2026 — a 1‑minute read Excerpts I’ve always seen the world up close, in small details — and somewhere in that nearness, my rhythm found its shape. How My Eyes Shape the Rhythm Most people think it’s irrational to wake up at midnight, leave a warm bed, and sit in front of a canvas for an idea that doesn’t even exist yet. Why lose sleep over something that hasn’t taken form? But does everything need to follow logic. No. In my case, I leave the comfort of my bed to think. My process has always been shaped by how I perceive colour and form. Since I was eight years old, I could only see clearly up close — distance was a blur — and at night, I was practically blind. As my Type 1 diabetes progressed, I developed retinopathy and cataract. Self -Portrait in Fragments, Oil on Canvas, 2023 - a study of how I see myself in fragments. In art school, my classmates and teachers often told me I was a natural colorist. They said my colours were organic, instinctive, alive — that I could mix hues in a way that felt effortless, even when I couldn’t see the full picture from a distance. Other artists outside school noticed it too. They would ask how I achieved certain tones, how I layered warmth and shadow, how I made colours breathe. The truth is, I never learned colour through theory. I don’t consult colour wheels or formulas. I don’t check rules or rely on systems. My colour comes from somewhere internal — from memory, from feeling, from the way my psyche holds light and shadow. I don’t always know why a certain hue is right; I just feel it. The palette lives inside me. It’s instinctive, shaped by the way I’ve always seen the world up close, in fragments, in softness. Maybe that’s why my colours feel organic. They’re not constructed — they’re remembered. I use the quiet moments between 3 and 5 a.m. to write, think, and let ideas settle. I return to them later when my perception is clearer. I don’t see this as a limitation but as a different rhythm. In those hours, there are fewer distractions. My thoughts are more fluid, more filtered. Ideas come through in a more intuitive way. I don’t do this every day — it’s more like a pattern my creativity uses. I wake up clear‑headed, thoughts already moving, and I need to catch them before they fade. Inspiration chooses me, but only for a minute. If I don’t act, it moves on — and I don’t mind. In that moment, I was simply the one chosen to receive it. There is more to see, more to feel — but that belongs to the next moment of clarity.

Cheryl Quejada Canning | Sydney 07 May 2026 — 2‑minute read Excerpt I’ve lived most of my life in motion, learning to travel light and hold on only to what carries meaning. Today, everything I own fits into a single suitcase — and among the few things I keep are five silver rings that have followed me across decades. They’re not valuable, but they are anchors: small symbols of memory, identity, and the quiet truths that shape both my life and my art. What I Carry: The Weight of One Suitcase and Five Silver Rings I’ve lived most of my life in motion. Growing up, we moved from place to place, following my father’s work. New walls, new streets, new neighbours — constant change shaped the way I see the world. It taught me to travel light, to let go easily, and to hold on only to what carries meaning. That instinct shaped my creative practice long before I ever called myself an artist. Even now, my life fits into a single 32‑kilogram suitcase: my paints, my brushes, a few books, and the canvases I refuse to leave behind. I don’t own much, but everything I keep has earned its place. Among them are five rings I’ve carried across decades — four sterling silver, one bronze. None are valuable in the traditional sense, but each one holds a story, a moment, a version of myself I once was. They remind me that meaning doesn’t come from the object itself, but from the life attached to it. Four silver rings and one bronze snake ring, all given to me years ago and still part of my journey My creative practice works the same way. I don’t create to decorate. I create to preserve — to hold the pieces of my inner world that would otherwise disappear in the movement of life. My work is built from memory, instinct, and the quiet truths that follow me from place to place. The rings are simply symbols of that continuity: small anchors in a life shaped by motion. Somewhere along the way, I realised the things I keep mirror the way I create. Art, for me, is the act of gathering what stays. Every canvas becomes an archive — of emotion, of lived experience, of the stories that refuse to fade even when everything else changes. I paint to give form to the things I cannot carry physically but carry deeply. I don’t need many possessions. A suitcase, a few artworks, and the rings that travel with me are enough. Because what I carry — in my hands and in my practice — is not about quantity. It’s about meaning. It’s about memory. It’s about the inner world that shapes every stroke, every decision, every piece I create. My art, like my life, is built from the things that stayed. As I continue to move through places, seasons, and versions of myself, I’m learning that my work is not shaped by what I leave behind, but by what chooses to stay.

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney 27 April 2026 - a 1-minute read. Excerpt A reflection on how a single black‑and‑white photo became the quiet beginning of a new idea — a moment of noticing before the making. Wired Dayz: How an Image Becomes a Beginning. People often assume I create by instinct alone as if I can make a painting appear with a flick of a finger. But my process has never been instant. It begins long before the first line or wash of colour. It begins in immersion, contemplation, and silence. This black‑and‑white photo is one example. At the time, I was thinking about a clothing concept called Wired Dayz. I didn’t know it then, but the image became a seed — a quiet starting point for another drawing, another painting, another way of seeing myself in the world. One of the moments people never see — the noticing before the making. Immersion, contemplation, and silence are essential to my process, just as much as experimentation and analysis. Painting, for me, sits somewhere between science and alchemy: a space where observation meets intuition, and where each gesture is both studied and felt. I take photos like this to study shape, weight, gesture, and mood. I sit with them. I let them breathe. I let them tell me what they want to become. Sometimes the image stays as it is, sometimes it transforms into something abstract, anatomical, or internal. The important part is the pause, the moment of listening before the making. My work doesn’t come from speed. It comes from attention. From noticing. From letting the smallest moment open into something larger. A thought I’m still following.

Writer: Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney — 20 April 2026 A short 2–3-minute read Excerpt A moment of returning to the quiet after shared time — where presence lingers even after the house settles. When the House Settles Again My sisters left today. The house and the studio feel different tonight — quieter, but full in a way that’s hard to name. There’s a softness that lingers after people you love walk out the door, as if the air is still holding the shape of their presence. I felt it most when I stepped back into my home studio. The room was the same, but I wasn’t. Their laughter, their small movements, the way they filled the space without trying — all of it stayed behind in the quiet. It changed the way I moved, the way I looked at the work waiting on the table. The silence wasn’t empty; it simply asked me to return to myself slowly. There’s something about shared time that rearranges the inner world. Even after the house settles, the body remembers — the warmth, the rhythm, the easy closeness. I found myself noticing the light differently, touching the materials with a gentler kind of attention, as if the day had left a thin layer of tenderness over everything. The four of us siblings — still carrying the same energy from childhood into adulthood. Maybe that’s what I’m learning: that connection doesn’t disappear when the moment ends. It shifts. It becomes part of the way I see, the way I work, the way I sit with the quiet. Tonight, the studio feels like a held breath — not lonely, just changed. A small echo of the four of us still moving through the room. Another moment I’ll return to when the house settles again.

Writer Cheryl Quejada Canning, Sydney. 21 April 2026 1 min read Excerpt A meditation on the slow rhythm of oil painting — where patience becomes a form of attention. Oil: A Choreography of Patience Working in oil is a slow choreography — a dance of timing, chemistry, and intent. Some sections stay wet for weeks, so you move in circles, returning only when each area is ready to receive the next gesture. Over time, this rhythm has shaped the way I observe life. Oil teaches me to slow down, to notice the quiet things that usually slip past — the way a sprig of rosemary releases its scent when held, the warmth of late afternoon light, the stillness inside an ordinary moment. These small intimacies remind me that patience isn’t passive; it’s a form of attention. A sprig of rosemary from the clothesline, resting on the first soft layer of a pastel drawing still finding its shape. Painting in oil feels like assembling a puzzle you can’t fully see yet. You follow instinct, wait, return, adjust — until the image finally gathers weight and coherence. The pauses are not interruptions; they are part of the work. This slow circling back, this willingness to stay with something over time, is what gives oil its quiet power. It mirrors the way I move through my days: attentive, patient, open to the subtle shifts that reveal themselves only when you’re willing to look closely. In both painting and living, clarity arrives in layers — revealed gently, in its own time. Another small moment I’ll return to when the light shifts.