Black Tear Painting

I paint in a style shown to me during an NDE (near-death experience). With my acrylic paintings, I explore the inner landscapes of grief, healing, authenticity, and spirituality through portrait and nature subjects. We humans experience very little of the physical world because of the limitations of our senses. I aim to draw the viewer closer to the unseen interconnectedness of all things to consider life through a wider lens. I incorporate a sense of other-worldliness into my paintings to achieve a “more than meets the eye” experience. My paintings are rich in symbolism. In most of them, you will find “circles within circles. These represent portals, decision points, or potentiality. Flowers and plants draw the viewer back to the physical world we experience. They also represent growth and healing. Some paintings show multiple faces on one figure. These represent aspects of self or the masks we wear. Either way, they are about the struggle and desire to find and live out one’s authentic self. I don’t believe in “bad” or “negative” emotions. So, when choosing color palettes, I often treat lighter and more difficult topics with purposeful equanimity. This methodology applies particularly to portrait work. For other work, I match the color palette to work in concert with the mood or idea I want to convey.