When I was growing up in Senegal, I would climb to the roof of my apartment building to sit and drink my coffee in the afternoon sunlight. Now, the sun streams through the windows in my studio, casting golden rays on many paintings of the sky that I’ve made. When real sunlight moves across a painted sky it creates an ethereal loop, as if the sky is looking in on itself. In other windows, sunlight gets caught in the curtains, saturating the fabric with a yellow glow and distorting the shadows cast by the trees outside. I paint these images because they are invitations to sit in the present moment—I can’t hold them in my hands or keep them in a box for later. Although I can’t reproduce the experience, I am thrilled to chase it because the pursuit itself creates something beautiful.