Breaking the Rules: The Story Behind "Of The Body"

It’s finished.

My new, large-scale diptych, "Of The Body," is standing in my studio, and it’s a piece that has changed me. This work is not only monumental in scale, I mean, it is standing taller and wider than my own body, but it was also created with my entire body, in a process that forced me to break my own rules.

This is the story of its creation.

Starting with Darkness

In painting, we are so often taught to work from light to dark when we work with transparent paint. We build up shadows, saving the white of the canvas for our highlights. It’s a logical, safe, and time-honored process.

"Of The Body" demanded the opposite.

From the very beginning, this piece felt different. It’s a work about the deep, unseen, microscopic worlds that make us who we are. It’s about the hidden universes within our cells and the secret, intricate patterns of the botanical world. These are motifs that come up in my work often but this time it is different. This time it needs to be seen MORE.

To capture that sense of depth, of peering through layers to find the light, I knew I had to start with darkness.

Before any image was formed, I poured a deep, transparent dark paint.

I was on my hands and knees with these two giant panels, and I used my hands, my arms, my whole body to move the fluid paint across the canvas. It was a physical, primal, and intuitive act. It felt necessary. To create a work about the body, I had to put my own body into the work from the very first mark. At times it got aggressive, and others felt calm.

This initial layer of transparent darkness is the DNA of the painting. It’s the "primordial soup" from which everything else emerges. The light you see isn't just painted on top; it feels like it’s fighting its way out from underneath, creating a sense of history and depth that I couldn't have achieved in any other way.

The Universes Within

The title, "Of The Body," is a double-entendre. It is of my body in its physical creation, and it is about the body in its concept.

For years, I’ve been fascinated by the patterns of the microscopic world. The branching of a vein, the cluster of cells, the intricate wall of a plant cell. These are the building blocks of life, and in them, I see entire universes. They are the most abstract, yet most fundamental, forms in existence.

As I worked into the dark, transparent base, these forms began to emerge. You’ll see them throughout the two panels:

• The web-like clusters that look like dividing cells.

• The recurring "eye" motifs that feel like the consciousness within the biology.

• The feathery, leaf-like textures that connect our own cellular structure to the plant world.

They are the language of life, abstracted but deeply familiar.

Two Panels, One Conversation

This work had to be a diptych. The physical break between the two panels is significant.

It represents the separation between two people, or the barrier between our internal selves and the outer world, or the divide between the known and the unknown.

But look closely. The forms, lines, and energy flow continuously from one panel to the next. The dark, rising shapes that anchor the bottom of the piece breathe and move across the divide. The drips and washes of color on the left echo the forms on the right.

They are not two separate paintings; they are one entity, one body, in constant conversation. It’s a reminder that even in separation, we are all made of the same essential, beautiful, and chaotic stuff.

A Piece to Be Experienced

"Of The Body" was a physical and emotional journey. It was about letting go of the "rules," trusting my intuition, and using my own physical form to express the invisible.

It’s a painting that I want you to feel, not just see. When you stand in front of it, I want you to feel its scale in your own body. I want you to get lost in its layers, following the lines and discovering the hidden cellular worlds.

More than anything, I hope it serves as a reminder that you are a walking, breathing universe of complex, beautiful, and interconnected systems.

Thank you for being here to witness it. I’d love to know: What do you see in it?