Vladimir Shir is a painter and stone carver whose practice explores the point at which observation becomes memory, and memory becomes reconstruction. For more than fifteen years before painting became central to his practice, he worked professionally with stone, particularly jade and other hard materials. This experience continues to shape the way he approaches watercolour: spatially, through volume, translucency, negative space, surface and light. His ongoing series Mémoire de l’Eau developed from an investigation of water not simply as a subject or medium, but as a presence through which contact produces a trace, and a trace can become memory. Several works emerged independently before their relationship became visible to the artist. This discovery changed the subsequent work and led to a continuing investigation of memory, contamination and reconstruction. In Wild Energy, animals shift this enquiry towards different states of perception: hares developed around the memory of a moment, while rats developed around presence and the temporary occupation of space. Shir works across watercolour, oil, stone and writing. Rather than beginning with a complete explanation, he often allows relationships between works to reveal themselves retrospectively. Across these different materials, his practice returns to encounters between living bodies, places and matter – and to what remains after the encounter has passed.