Watch a video introduction to this series.
These eight 30″ x 30″ acrylics on canvas are part of a larger group of fifty canvases completed between 2013 and 2016. As the subjects emerged, I realized that a group of paintings coalesced around the theme of our crucial, yet tenuous, relationship with nature. The situation is dire, yet the images still offer some hope in our openness to our experience of the natural world.
Global Warming—Silhouetted against a wall of fire and destruction, the human being seems to make an attempt at saving two small birds . . . but they are all in the same predicament.
Heartbeat—In darkness beneath the canopy of the green forest . . . the title refers to the heartbeat of the forest, the heartbeat of the living world.
Offering (Teach the withered trees to bloom)—“Teach the withered trees to bloom” is quoted from John Cage’s translation of the Zen Ox Herding poems. The painting is about that kind of energy, determination, and healing touch.