Titled Ancient Nostalgia: Mourning Paintings That Could Have Been, this project is not about regret, but reflection, a tribute to the places and moments that shaped me, both as a researcher and as an artist.

As I travelled for my PhD research, there were countless missed opportunities to paint like great outdoor painters would have: ancient vistas, temples, desert towns and busy port cities-- all slipping by in the urgency of academic work.

However, these moments have stayed with me. Through this project, I allow myself return to them, not to mourn their passing, or wish I had of done different, but to celebrate them, to honour their 'imprint', and to share the mosaic of memory and transformation that they left behind.

Inspired by 19th-century travellers like David Roberts and his romantic depictions of Petra, and by the fleeting light and immediacy of the Impressionists, my practice grew organically alongside my research. The travel journals included in the exhibition capture this evolution: from documentary sketching to a more fluid, expressive style that marks the beginning of a new chapter in my creative life.

This exhibition aims to be a reflection on memory, place, and the traces we will always carry. It asks what it means to return, not to a location, but to a feeling or a lost moment, and how art can imagine what could have been, and what remains.

-Madaline Harris Schober