24" x 24", oil on panel
This painting is a link between my minimalist pieces with squares and circles and the butterfly work. The butterfly is coming out of the void into the green. It is equivalent to coming out from under a rock, as the saying goes. Light and texture play important roles in this one.
My friend, Andrew, had this observation, "The darker green appears to me as the shadow of someone’s head, an unseen observer watching the butterfly emerge from the square. Just thought I’d share that."
Usually when people say they see "things" in my paintings, it is often because they can't see the picture as an abstraction and are trying to latch onto something they can name, like looking for things in clouds. A face is typically the first thing picked out because it comes from a human need to make sense of another human, finding the eyes, nose, and mouth. In this case, Andrew is right on. It is funny when I haven't lived with a piece long enough to realize what I did. The meaning of this shadowy presence is a whole other thing.
