mixed metal leaf, oil paint, mother of pearl, acrylic on wood
9 × 12
framed size: 14 × 11
Title: Dark Horse Thunderhead
From the Field Note Series
This piece arrived like a welcome winter storm.
Dark Horse Thunderhead was one of the first times I worked with a heavily textured molding paste — a material that shifts everything. The beauty of metal leaf is that it’s so thin, it reflects the shape of whatever lives beneath it.
Rough textures dull the sheen, catch the cracks. Raised ridges catch the light. The result is layered, weathered, alive.
This piece is a meeting point between contrasts:
On the right, a dark sky pushes in — brooding, storm-like. This is pure paint, layered thickly, and quickly, with the energy of what is to come.
On the left, pastel silver leaf glows with quiet force.
Across the piece, you’ll find Mother of Pearl layered in — soft, luminous, and unexpected. It is found in the earth in red and yellow, and in the sky in more natural hues.
That silver isn’t pure silver — it’s pastel silver leaf, with a milky-white cast. Not as sharp in reflectivity, but radiant in the dark. Like the last light before the sky breaks open.
This painting is about the dance between dark and light, soft and hard, rough and radiant.
The storm doesn’t erase the light. It makes it undeniable.
You can enter from either side — the quiet glow or the approaching thunder — and you’ll meet the same truth:
Nature is always seeking balance.
mixed metal leaf, oil paint, mother of pearl, acrylic on wood
9 × 12
framed size: 14 × 11
Title: Dark Horse Thunderhead
From the Field Note Series
This piece arrived like a welcome winter storm.
Dark Horse Thunderhead was one of the first times I worked with a heavily textured molding paste — a material that shifts everything. The beauty of metal leaf is that it’s so thin, it reflects the shape of whatever lives beneath it.
Rough textures dull the sheen, catch the cracks. Raised ridges catch the light. The result is layered, weathered, alive.
This piece is a meeting point between contrasts:
On the right, a dark sky pushes in — brooding, storm-like. This is pure paint, layered thickly, and quickly, with the energy of what is to come.
On the left, pastel silver leaf glows with quiet force.
Across the piece, you’ll find Mother of Pearl layered in — soft, luminous, and unexpected. It is found in the earth in red and yellow, and in the sky in more natural hues.
That silver isn’t pure silver — it’s pastel silver leaf, with a milky-white cast. Not as sharp in reflectivity, but radiant in the dark. Like the last light before the sky breaks open.
This painting is about the dance between dark and light, soft and hard, rough and radiant.
The storm doesn’t erase the light. It makes it undeniable.
You can enter from either side — the quiet glow or the approaching thunder — and you’ll meet the same truth:
Nature is always seeking balance.
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