Every painting carries more than color and form—it holds a story. Sometimes it’s in the brushstrokes, sometimes in the name, and often in the journey of its creation. In this space, I share larger views of some of my favorite work alongside the stories that shaped them. Take a moment, wander through, and know that every piece has already passed Tavi’s inspection—he’s a tough critic, but only when the treats run out.
Risky Kayaking
Born from my first Lightning piece, this work asked for something more. As the paint dried, my stepmother saw a kayaker in the water, and her vision became mine. My father—an avid kayaker who passed away just before I began painting—was the natural choice. Adding him felt like honoring both her insight and his passion, a way of letting him live within the canvas. I gifted the finished piece to her for her birthday, a shared memory carried forward in color and light.
Black Hole Sun
In this imagined cosmos, a lone star drifts across the upper foreground, its light fragile against the pull below. Just beneath, a black hole gathers streams of gas from a nebula, weaving them into a quiet dance of gravity and flame. The composition is both serene and immense—a meditation on motion, collapse, and the beauty found in cosmic tension. Among my abstracts, it remains a favorite: a universe captured in paint.
Sunrise of a Red Giant
An early experiment in double pour, this piece unfolded into the vision of an alien world. I imagine its yellow star—like our own sun—exhausted of fuel, swelling outward into a red giant until it consumes the horizon. The result is haunting yet mesmerizing, a cosmic itch I hadn’t known I carried until it revealed itself in paint.
Split Fiction
After we unexpectedly lost my father, my sister and I found comfort in playing the game “Split Fiction” together. Its story — of loss, of siblings, of resilience — echoed pieces of our own lives and became a bond we shared in that difficult time. When I look at this painting, I don’t just see the image before me. I see my sister, and all the memories we carry together.
Glacial Lava (#10)
Exploring the contrast between warm and cool colors was one of my earliest goals. On the warm side, I mixed silicone into the paint; on the cool side, I added it later with a toothpick. My hope was to evoke the textures of fire and lava against water and bubbles. It didn’t turn out exactly as I imagined, but I love the unexpected result. This piece marks my 10th painting, proudly numbered on the back.
Jupiter’s Ghost
Born from my favorite colors, this painting was among my first experiments with silicone. The swirling textures reminded me of Jupiter’s turbulent weather patterns captured in close-up images, a ghostly echo of storms across a distant world. As my seventh painting, numbered on the back, it became the spark that inspired my series Nine Voices in the Void.
Redhead
Another born from my favorite colors, this abstract carries no intended meaning—yet it revealed one to me. In its flowing forms I can’t help but see a redheaded woman, turned to the left, her hair streaming across the canvas. What began as pure aesthetic pleasure became an image I can never unsee, a quiet portrait hidden within the paint.
Which Way is Up
When I first shared this piece on Facebook, I was stunned by the response—it drew more love than any of my other paintings. At the time, I didn’t see much in it myself. But looking back now, I can’t unsee the image of a goldfish in the lower left, drifting through what must be a pond. Sometimes the meaning arrives later, revealed by reflection and the eyes of others.
