In total, 42 people submitted 75 observations, and 20 of those observations became paintings. Those 20 works now exist in two places: one half sent out, the other kept in The Archive of Selective Memory.

The collection of Right half paintings is shown in the image above. The Left half paintings have been sent out across the UK, France, Switzerland, Italy, Türkiye, South Africa and Australia.

If you’ve received one, you’ll know that what arrived doesn’t necessarily feel incomplete. Many of the halves read as resolved paintings in their own right. At the same time, you know that something corresponds to it elsewhere - the corresponding Right part.

Each pairing has been photographed and stored with the observation details in an on-line digital archive at objkt.com.

Most of the observations you sent in didn’t become paintings, but they are still part of the project. The collection you’re seeing is shaped as much by what wasn’t selected as by what was.

There isn’t a clear pattern to participation. Some of you participated in all four weeks, and some participated only once. One of you participated in only two consecutive weeks and was selected twice (which prompted a ‘steward’s enquiry’ into the randomising process). Others submitted several times and were not selected at all. The process doesn’t favour persistence or effort. It simply runs as it is set.

At this point, everything exists in parts. The paintings are split. The observations are either seen or not seen. The complete version of each work exists, but only as a digital record. There isn’t a single place where everything comes together.

Chapter 1 has been about establishing this structure and seeing if it would hold. It does. Chapter 2 will keep the same approach, but push it further through the prompts, through how the paintings are divided, and through how the archive is shown.

Thank you to K. D. in Sanremo, the recipient of the painting made in Week 2, who kindly sent the photo below. The painting was made in response to:

“Planted my first pot of cat grass. With four cats in the building. It might be fun!”

If you’ve received a painting, it’s yours to keep, alter, or use as you wish. If you’d like to share a photo, you’re very welcome to. It would be very interesting to see what happens to it.

Thank you again to all who participated.

Week 4 Prompt was - Describe any beginning you witnessed that felt challenging.

Day 1: “Formation of the new Hungarian government that we are all witnessing seems pretty challenging.”
A. A., Sanremo, Italy.

The redacted social media fragments suggest information arriving as evidence, but the surface becomes unstable and difficult to trust. It starts with the formation of a government, but ends up closer to a field of pressure, distortion, and competing claims.

Day 2: “One of my sons lost his job recently and is now working on finding a new direction.”
A. H., Écully, France.

The work holds a steady cadence of coloured activity blocks, suggesting a system in place. That structure is interrupted and doesn’t recover; what follows thins out into tentative directions that never fully settle, leaving only traces of what was there and uncertainty.

Day 3. “The sun coming up in a blush pink sky, the day after my son was born, Knowing his life was in my hands, brought tears to my eyes.”
D. L., Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex.

The dawn holds for a moment, then thins out across the surface. Colour circulates without a centre, the field staying even as the feeling shifts. A gentle pressure that doesn’t resolve.

Day 4. “Beginning the housework tasks that I’ve been putting off.”
T. S. Perth, Australia.

Small portraits of cleaning equipment, each held in its own compartment. They register individually, but remain fixed within the shelving that holds them in place. The system is complete, but nothing has started.

Day 5. “A minute bird found in town centre in a doorway. No mother around. Taken home by a child, after a few days it disappeared, windows closed! Where did it go?”
R. B., Sanremo, Italy.

Using a child’s drawing language to reflect a child’s way of understanding the situation, I painted only with my non-dominant hand, making marks and writing which keeps the image direct and unrefined. Although deceptively simple, it had its material challenges.

Where did that bird go?

Thank you everybody so much for participating and helping create a network of distributed paintings. Your engagement has been brilliant.

Week 3 Prompt - What UNEXPECTED beginning did you witness this year?

Day 1: “Welcoming two teenagers into Explorer Scouts after they have relocated into the area due to hate crime against their family”
A. P., Gloucestershire, UK.

This was a demanding observation, not easy to hold. Avoiding narrative, I used an organised jigsaw structure against a field of anger and violence. The pieces started to read as human, which wasn’t entirely comfortable.

Day 2: “Did not expect that dropping out of OCA [Open College of the Arts] would feel like such a relief- freedom, a new beginning, into the unknown!”
A. H., Écully, France.

This aligned closely with where I was at the time, having just finished with OCA. The shift into a different colour combination — pink and green — carried that sense of release. It felt like stepping into something less certain, but necessary.

Day 3. “Not far from here, blasts shatter lives and turn the world gray. And yet, here I am, in an Explosion of beauty and light! Wherever I look, millions of tulips …”
M. D., Istanbul, Türkiye

This sits between two conditions — a violent disruption pushing into a field of colour. The tulips hold for now, but they’re under pressure. That felt like the point.

Day 4. “I thought it was dead, but surprise new green shoots are now growing.”
P. H., Bettingen, Switzerland.

I held the surface close to the point where it could read as dead. The shoots only arrive if you spend time with it. They’re easy to miss, but that felt right.

Day 5. “A contract with the World Health Organisation in the European Office to train medical services in case of a radio-nuclear event.”
R. C., Sanremo, Italy.

I keep returning to documents and the authority they carry. They suggest a system in control, but the surface doesn’t quite support that. There’s a pressure building underneath that the diagrams try to contain but can’t. It starts structured, but doesn’t stay that way.

Thank you so much for participating and helping create a network of distributed paintings. The left half of each pair will be dispatched to the named participant later this week. Even if you receive a painting you can continue to send observations - there’s no limit on how many you might eventually receive.

Week 2 Prompt - Describe any new beginning you have witnessed that felt important to you.

Day 1: “On seeing flowers, following a cataract operation: “The colours, the colours!””
L.W, Bude, Cornwall, UK.

This started as a colour problem — blue against orange, pushed until it all vibrates. With small amounts of fluorescent pigment doing more than the rest — it’s difficult to photograph, but holds-up in reality.

Day 2: “With age comes gratitude, each day feels like a fresh start, and simply being alive and well becomes a true blessing.”
V.K, Staines Upon Thames, Surrey, UK.

This observation gave me the opportunity to simply be alive and experience the fresh start to my day. Focusing on the trace of my heartbeat, the colours come in rhythms.

Day 3. “Planted my first pot of cat grass. With four cats in the building. It might be fun!”
K.D, Sanremo, Italy.

Cats! Unruly beings. I love cats. What is Gloria thinking?

Day 4. “I found the trace of a decommissioned train line. Finding that ‘Invisible Line’ wasn’t a discovery, it became the birth of a new way of seeing the ground beneath my …”
K.S, South Africa

“He’s gone all Jackson Pollock!” I hear you exclaim. This observation allowed me to make a performance piece. Listening intently to a 25-minute train recording, I drew continuously, with both hands, using oil pastel — translating the implied movement of an absent railway into a shift in how the ground is read.

Day 5. “Walking on the Golf Course the other day I noticed hundreds of beautiful butterflies. The air felt soft and warm, not hot or cold. Just right. The sky was a …”
A.B, Sanremo, Italy

Life is like a butterfly …

Thank you so much for participating. You are helping me create a network of distributed paintings. The left half of each pair will be dispatched to the named participant later this week. Even if you receive a painting you can continue to send observations - there’s no limit on how many you might eventually receive.

Week 1 Prompt - Describe a new beginning you witnessed within the last 7 days.

Day 1: “Spotted hosta shoots, a new war against slugs.”
D.S, Purley on Thames, UK.

Not being a gardener myself, I needed to research what hosta shoots are. Now I know.

Day 2: “Change in financial priorities!”
A.M, Inverness, UK.

Such a broad subject with little personal narrative led me to exploring the headlines of recent news. Each scrap is created using black acrylic paint onto tissue paper - a very tricky and messy process indeed.

Day 3. “my Garden as winter sheds its clothes so does spring bring forward blossom which Turn to apples every year it’s new again.”
D.L, Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, UK.

Blossoms are not my go-to subjects for painting. In fact, I can’t say I’ve ever painted blossoms, but I persevered. You might spot a little friend among the long grass.

Day 4. “Tiny green shoots breaking soil, the simplest kind of beginning.”
L.B, York, UK.

I show tiny green shoots and leaves emerging from under dark soil from the perspective of looking down. I painted the black soil over a field of variegated green, weaving my paintbrush around to isolate the little green shapes. As I progressed, starting with the tiny dots in the lower half, I felt the tiny shoots were beginning to grow and then fly away, in the wind.

Day 5. “A splendid historic Maltese band club, now being renovated and reimagined as a public space for music, food, and drink.”
P.H, Bettingen, Switzerland

I had to wonder what a historic Maltese band club might look like. I sensed a clear transformation was needed - a room in preparation for decoration against a space being prepared for music. A space devoid of much activity - a space waiting to come alive.

Thank you so much for participating. You are helping create a network of distributed paintings. The left half of each pair will be dispatched to the named participant this week and even if you receive a painting you can continue to send observations - there’s no restriction on how many paintings you might eventually receive.

Each enters the selection pool.
One will be drawn at random
each studio day.
One will become a painting.

Responses for this week are accepted until Wednesday 08 April, 08:00GMT.

Start noticing small things …

Not yet joined?: How to Participate
If anything is unclear: FAQ
Background and concept: About

Correspondence is a participatory painting project.
Each week people send a short observation in response to a prompt.
One observation is selected at random and turned into a painting in my studio in Sanremo, Italy.
The person whose observation is selected receives part of the painting by mail.
Participation is free. Anyone can take part.

To participate, read the guide: How to Participate
If anything is unclear: FAQ
Background and concept: About