Description

18×24″ Acrylic on Canvas with a gold-edge float frame

Made in mid 2024, I consider this to be the height of my “violet phase.” It’s an important color to me for a lot of reasons, but chiefly because it’s my wife’s favorite color.

When I painted this one, my wife and I were expecting our first child and were just starting our journey into parenthood. At around 20 weeks, we experienced a painful stillbirth. We named her Violet. All my violet paintings took on completely new meanings.

So today, this owl is part of a wider celebration of someone who changed me though I never really met her. It’s a beautiful reminder that she’s still watching me, she’s still around. She still changes my life actively to this very day. The barred owl stands at the threshold of the unknown, of what might have been. It’s not sad though, it’s just another reality being lived out somewhere.

I named it HYPNOTIZE for the way that she stares at the viewer so intently, with circular patterns in the background. She’s hypnotizing you. She’s going to take you on a journey. You’re getting very sleepy…