Eclipse

The Eclipse series of paintings began with an image that came to me while meditating. My initial vision was the central shape and its shadow hovering above perpendicular lines with three distinct colors. I played around with the composition and thought about how to create a painting that used colors of similar value so another form would be revealed when put in grayscale, hence the title of the series. Later, on a trip to the Austrian countryside, I noticed religious objects called monstrances on display at Melk Abbey. An electric feeling ran through my body. My god, I thought, that’s it! The monstrance is thought of as a vessel and the center of the sunburst shape, known as the luna, is meant to hold the literal presence of Christ. Digging deeper into history, I found that pagans also used the sunburst to express the eternal cyclic nature of life and the connection between the physical and the spiritual, with the “rays” warding off darkness. Both of these meanings resonate with me and as I make these paintings, I feel a sense of harmony between the tangible and the unknown, the linear and the spontaneous, stillness and movement.