A hand cradling a cell phone. A plastic grocery bag draped over an arm. The shapes
between figures as they move through space. I am drawn to these small, unspoken negotiations between people and the spaces they
occupy — the way architecture, posture, and proximity quietly tell a story no one is
saying out loud.

Painting, for me, is an act of devotion — a way of looking deep enough, and long
enough, that someone becomes impossible to overlook. Much like Caravaggio cast his
contemporaries as sacred and historical figures, I use dramatic light and lost and found
contours to grant my subjects weight and dignity.

There is a moment in the process I wait for: when the mark surprises me, and a figure
stops being a reference and becomes a presence. This work is how I make sense of my own ordinary life — and how I try to ensure that
those who go unnoticed are, at least here, seen.


Margaret DeLima is an interdisciplinary artist and educator working on suburban Long Island, NY.