Echos of Gold by S.Walton

I keep coming back to the figure—not to explain it, but to sit with it.

Lately, I’ve been interested in moments that feel unresolved. The pause before movement. The weight that settles in the body when nothing is happening outwardly, but everything is happening inside. That’s where these figures live—held between stillness and motion, strength and vulnerability.

I work with a limited palette of black, white, and gold because it helps me stay honest. Black grounds the figure. It carries weight, depth, and the things that don’t always get spoken. White gives the work space to breathe. It creates quiet and allows the form to exist without distraction. Together, they create tension—but also balance.

Gold is different. I don’t use it to decorate or finish a piece. It comes in when something needs to be felt. Sometimes it follows movement, sometimes it marks pressure or growth. I’m careful with where it goes. I avoid the face so the emotion stays in the body—how it stands, bends, holds itself. Each figure carries gold in a different place, which helps tie the series together without repeating the same story.

Negative space matters just as much as the figure. I think about how these pieces will live on a wall, how light will hit them, how much space they need around them. I want viewers to slow down, not rush past. To notice the quiet parts.

This series, Held Between, isn’t about answers. It’s about presence. About those in-between moments we all recognize but rarely stop to name. If someone sees themselves in that pause—even briefly—then the work has done what I hoped it would do.

-Ecohs of Gold