Secret Dots

There is a woman in a lot of photographs from the 1950s and 1960s — wearing black, wearing dots, never explaining herself. This set was made in that spirit. The black base was applied first — deep, lacquered, entirely itself. Then the dots. Every single dot placed by hand with a dotting tool pressed into the surface at a consistent angle and lifted away cleanly, producing a circle that is the same size and the same opacity as every circle before it and after it. Across nine nails, this means hundreds of individual placements, each one checked against the last. And then the tenth nail. The one in the middle. Left pink — a soft, warm blush that should not work against the black around it and somehow does, completely. The pink was not chosen randomly. It was chosen because it is the colour that makes the black look darker and the dots look whiter and the whole set look like something that was considered very carefully rather than assembled. This is a set with a sense of humour. Dark with one pink nail. All the confidence of black, all the tenderness of blush, and the self-awareness to put them next to each other and let the viewer decide what that means.