Heaven on Earth Painting

Writing about this collection is an emotional ordeal. With its origins in death, “In Lieu of Flowers” is my artistic attempt to grapple with the pain, unease and uncertainty surrounding loss. Almost exactly a year of my life has been spent on these pieces. The “underpaintings” that start each design are reminiscent of my previous work: bold, colorful, unafraid. The tedium of erasing these bright compositions with layers upon layers of white paint reminds me that grief is a continuous and sometimes arduous process. With each pass of white paint, the portals left exposed changed shapes and grew smaller. Mimicking the way our memories change with the passage of time, each individually shaped composition evolved multiple times. Some were done away with completely, whether by choice or by the chance movement of the brush. Control is relinquished as life continues around us after the death of a friend, the loss of your freedoms, the grief of war. This collection is energetically charged with the desperation to go back in time, erase the tragedy, go on living “normally”. Alas, no matter the begging and the bargaining, time marches forward.