Freedom, 2014
48" x 48"
In Freedom, painted in 2014, I explored the tension between structure and release through large fields of color, layered texture and a deliberately restrained composition. A saturated passage of red occupies the center of the painting, held within quieter fields of atmospheric blue, pale lavender, ivory and weathered gray.
The composition is simple, but the surface is not. Layers have been built up, scraped back, covered and revealed, allowing traces of earlier marks to remain visible. I have always been interested in what happens when a painting retains evidence of its own making—when what has been concealed is still somehow present beneath the surface.
The central red form feels physical and immediate against the cooler surrounding colors. To me, it carries a sense of energy breaking through restraint—something vivid and alive occupying its own space without needing to be contained or explained. Around it, the softer blues and whites create room to breathe, allowing the intensity of the red to exist without overwhelming the composition.
Looking back at Freedom more than a decade after painting it, I can recognize ideas that continue to surface in my work today: the psychological relationship between color and space, the contrast between structure and gesture, and the ways an abstract painting can hold an emotional experience without illustrating it literally.
For me, Freedom is ultimately about the space we create when we allow something within us to exist fully and without restraint.
