I am interested in what a culture decides to keep.

A painting hangs on a wall for three hundred years. A handwritten prayer offered in public is removed and discarded within weeks. We have decided which of those is worth lasting. That decision is not neutral. It is a confession. It reveals what we actually believe about value, about attention, about what a human life is worth noticing.

I do not believe the prayers are scratchings. I believe they are heard.

I work with handwritten prayers gathered through cross installations placed in public contexts: churches, prisons, public events, international sites. Participants write briefly and consent to preservation. No names are asked. From the archive, I select prayers and paint them on raw linen at architectural scale, exactly as written. Misspellings stay. Pressure stays. Hesitation stays. The original tag remains with the painting.

The work refuses correction. It refuses the editorial hand. It treats the language as it was given.

I do not understand the work as rescue. The premise of KEPT is that these prayers have already been received. Scripture describes them as incense rising before God, gathered in golden bowls. They are not lost. They are not pending. They were received in the moment of address. The work does not save them. It joins what has already been done with them.

The painting does not change the prayer. It changes the conditions of encounter: scale, duration, material, visibility. A viewer stands in front of a stranger's address and, for the duration of looking, holds it. The petition is received again, by another. It does not end. It changes hands.

A painting can hang on a wall for three hundred years. A prayer is meant to last a few weeks.

I keep them.