Submerge: Eight Encounters
Outside
Surrender
Oil on wood, 40 x 30 in.
A tree grows low to the ground, contorted by its struggle for light. Beside it lie the remains of another, fed through a wood chipper.
Shelter
Oil on wood, 48 x 36 in.
A shelter made of fallen branches recalls Andy Goldsworthy’s land art. While working at the site, towering trees and shards of light evoked the feeling I had once experienced inside Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, and Antoni Gaudí’s belief that “originality consists in returning to the origin.”
Eternal
Oil on linen, 36 x 48 in.
This fountain-like palm rises from rugged ground at the site of an ancestral redwood forest. Below, a footpath etches the outline of a felled tree.
Inside
Celadon Sink
Oil on wood, 24 x 18 in.
Inspired by Wayne Thiebaud’s pinball paintings, this tilted ‘playfield’ offers a serene sensory experience. An abalone shell underscores nature’s influence on the man-made.
Scarth
Oil on linen, 24 x 24 in.
On a tilted hearth where bricks lie marred and bare, a poinsettia flares.
Glass Ledge
Oil on panel, 36 x 24 in.
Initially drawn to the challenge of painting a scene in pearlescent whites, I arranged a stacked still life with Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass and Fountain in mind. The composition ascends precariously from a flush lever, while Picasso’s dove lends a note of fragile accord.
People
Reading in the Dark
Oil on panel, 18 x 21 in.
A reader’s silhouette bisects the black void of a hearth embossed with fleur-de-lys, while a branched candlestick signals duality.
Le Petit Prince
Oil on linen, 24 x 30 in.
An artist’s confident pose holds the weight of his surroundings. During the process, I learned his favorite childhood story was Le Petit Prince—a resonance I later came to recognize in the painting.