This acrylic painting, "Solaris" is named after its look which loosely resembles a sunflower. 

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I find it satisfying to combine the look of a flower with the look of the cosmos or something from the stars or the universe.

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The mandala composition once again, allows a straightforward and easy direction for the painter to fall into.

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The fact that everything really centers around the middle of the square image provides an opportunity to explore patterns, colors, and juxtapositions of colors.

 

I enjoy exploring other compositions, but perhaps I'm a bit hedonistic in my desire and gravitation to paint, because I very much enjoy the satisfying feeling of placing paint on a canvas, and watching the painting unfold as it does.

 

My hedonism is facilitated and enabled when I have the mandala composition to fall back into.

 

The mandala never fails in allowing me to paint and saturate a surface with a variety of different. patterns.

 

The beautiful thing about mandalas is you don't know entirely how it's going to look when you start or even when you're halfway through.

 

With Solaris, I started to outline an underlaying group of marks with a sort of flower pedal design, and then I painted darker colors around that to allow the underpainting to remain, while the painting juxtaposed around that changed.

 

The only way I can really allow myself to explore different ways of making patterns, and ultimately explore painting is if I adhere to a reliable composition such as the mandala.

 

I think people look at my work, and they say - oh it's celestial, or it's "cosmic" or it's "psychedelic", but I feel that dismisses a large chunk of the process and almost writes off what it really is - it is an exploration of visual phenomenon for the purpose of play and integrating a relationship of mark making.