**Work Note – Ephemeral: Portraits of Plants (First Work)** This work marks the beginning of my ongoing project **Ephemeral: Portraits of Plants**, a series that explores plants as carriers of time, memory, and light. Rather than approaching the plant as a botanical subject, I treat it as a living eventone shaped by rhythm, duration, and changing perception. The first work emerged through close observation of plants that often remain unnoticed in everyday surroundings. I was particularly interested in how light alters their presence across different moments of the day. Through photographing and sketching these plants repeatedly, I began to notice subtle shifts in how forms soften or dissolve, how shadows interrupt clarity, and how certain details appear only briefly before disappearing. These observations became the foundation for the painting. Watercolour plays a crucial role in shaping this work. Its fluid and unpredictable nature mirrors the fragility of the subject itself. I worked through multiple layers of washes, allowing the pigment to settle, bleed, and stain the surface. At the same time, I actively removed pigment using water, creating areas of erasure. This process of adding and subtracting reflects how memory operates never fully intact, often fragmented, and constantly reshaped over time. The plant in this work is not depicted with fixed outlines or stable form. Instead, it appears suspended between presence and disappearance. Some areas remain sharp, while others dissolve into the paper, suggesting moments of clarity alongside fading impressions. These shifts are intentional and central to the work. They emphasize that perception is never stable and that what we see is always conditioned by time, light, and our own attentiveness. This first work functions as a portrait, but not in the traditional sense. It does not aim to document a specific plant accurately. Rather, it records an encounter, a moment of looking slowed down and extended through the act of painting. The scale of the work allows the viewer to enter the image physically, encouraging sustained attention rather than quick recognition. As the opening work in the series, this painting establishes the visual and conceptual language of the project. It sets the tone for an ongoing investigation into the ephemeral nature of plants and the ways they hold traces of time, memory, and sensation. Through this work, I begin to articulate a practice that is rooted in observation, instability, and the quiet persistence of living forms.