I am in the final days of prep work for my upcoming show, Native Voice, at the Principle Gallery, which opens next Friday, June 5. This will be my 16th show at the Alexandria gallery so my routine in finishing up in these few last days is pretty set. Even so, it’s a hectic rush to get everything done. For instance, even as I am framing I am still finishing up my final photography of the work.
For instance, just this morning I shot the 24″ by 30″ painting on canvas shown at the top. I had photographed it before but the lighting coupled with the blue tones made it a less than desirable photo, not really representative of the actual painting. But this one seems to hit the mark, capturing the blues in their actuality.
I call this painting Eureka. The word is from the Greek, meaning “I have found it ” and was most famously attributed to Archimedes who upon sitting in a hot bath noticed that his body displaced an equal volume of water which meant that the volume of irregular objects could then be accurately measured. That was not an easy thing to do around 250 BC.
But over the years, the word eureka has come to signify any great moment of discovery. California uses it as their state motto after its use in the gold strikes of the mid 19th century.
In this painting, the bursting light which forms a corona around the Red Tree signifies a moment of great recognition of some heretofore hidden truth, a discovery that forever alters one’s perspective of the world and their place in it. It was not painted with this intent but the fact that the light is bursting from out of the blue of the sky is no small coincidence. That is how these eureka moments normally reveal themselves– unannounced with little forewarning.
I’ve been fortunate to have one or two of these moments. Well, one for sure. And in that instance, I certainly felt like I was suddenly standing ablaze in the darkness that had surrounded me. This piece really captures that instance for me.
Redtree Times 