The Circle That Breathes

An orange oval opens in the water, a perfect mouth in a restless field of green. Around it, the surface trembles, bending the light into soft spirals.

An orange koi fish opening its mouth at the water's surface

An orange oval opens in the water, a perfect mouth in a restless field of green. Around it, the surface trembles, bending the light into soft spirals. You can almost hear it — the intake of air, the small suction that marks life just below.

The colour is too vivid to belong entirely to nature: orange burning through black, a flare breaking through the dark mirror of the pond. Ripples travel outward like time, undoing themselves at the edges, leaving only shimmer and blur. What was once still water becomes a living skin, stretched and recoiling.

Look long enough, and the fish disappears. What remains is motion — breath drawn through a circle of brightness, water reshaping itself in answer. It’s a study not of the animal, but of what it disturbs — a momentary geometry of life meeting air.

In the exhibition Work 158 of 363

Meeting Other Lives

At the Pond

Before We Explain the World

See this photograph in the exhibition