Oil on Linen, 34x30, SOLD

This piece is more of a self portrait of the last year and a half of my life. I feel like life brings us certain challenges to show us what we have already inside, yearning to unburden ourselves of things we’ve carried for far too long. What if our external experiences were only mirrors to show the internal, whether positive or negative. It’s as if we are one of Michelangelo’s marble sculptures, just waiting to be untethered from that which enslaves us. Every great teacher says to go inward. I think we are afraid of what we will find. But what we will find is what the seed already knows it is. We will find who we really are, separate from all the burdens we identify with. This painting contains every emotion I think I’ve ever felt, from the agony to the ecstasy. The painting began over a year ago when I was encouraged to paint non objectively and try to use the practice of painting as a means of expression and healing. The background you see is mostly what came out. I envisioned using the abstract expressionist painting as the background for something special. A year and a half later I knew that I wanted to paint a bouquet over the top. When I finished the bouquet it still wasn’t quite finished. I ended the painting in the same way that it started. I began adding the bright colorful impasto marks in an expressionistic sort of intuitive way. It ended with a cadmium orange signature. This piece has a mix between chaos and order, the visual and invisible, the explained and unexplainable. And just as the first painting starts, the background symbolizes the unknown stories of every person we meet. We never know what someone is or has gone through in their lives. If we did, we might be alot less judgmental. I think the first place to start however, is with ourselves. Let us be the change we want to see in the world, find self compassion and ultimately self love.