I carry inner conflicts within me that I paint.

The first time I saw a mirage, I was a child. The street was shimmering in the heat, the air was still, and my father was driving the car. Excitedly I shouted: "Oh, the sea!" My father smiled and said:

'No. that's not a sea. It's a mirage - an illusory image created by the refraction of light.

I didn't understand the logic behind it. But there, just above the shiny surface of the mirage on the road, I saw a woman- and then a man - jumping in. I asked my father, Where did the woman and the man jump to?' He glanced at me and said, 'There was no one there. I think you've got heatstroke. Drink some water.

Since then, whenever we are confronted with a situation like this, I see these jumping figures again. A man or a woman who suddenly surrender to the image. I don't know whether they are jumping into the sea or into the mirage.

The images in this series reflect precisely these unexpected jumps

• the figures that have been diving into my thoughts without warning since my childhood. Not quite real, not quite imaginary - but somewhere between mirage and sea, between the visible and the invisible.