The story behind the artwork

Capitol Reef National Park is a great place for feeling small. My first impression of it was a lasting one. Reef, one of my favorite words for all it implies. At this reef, every direction you look towards, north, south, east and west, you see desert. You can see the ancient shelf band as it runs along the edge of the highway. It's eroded, crumbling sandstone and limestone now, but you can almost see it in it's ancient form, with a little imagination, as a shallow inland sea, flourishing with life. I realize, it's not the idea of a coral reef like what I see in the Bahamas when I'm scuba diving, but, in whatever form it took, it must have been quite a spectacular sight. All the life that lived and died to create all that limestone. Layers upon layers of environmental history recorded in these seemingly endless desert sands.

The painting "reef" is a personal reflection on this place. Undulating forms from underwater life stretching across four canvases to represent the four directions and "as far as the eye can behold." A real life scale to the imagery which is painted on a base ground of actual grains of desert sand creates a surface with a 1:1 scale ratio. The colors are drawn from the desert as it is now. The desert colors are not just brown, you will find them full of greens, reds, ochres, and umbers, when your eye is trained to see. Desert loving people see them. In my painting they are enhanced to a new level of vibrancy as if looking at something wet and illuminated by the sun.

Look for future paintings from me that explore the connections between the ocean and the dessert. As a diver and desert dweller it is one of my favorite topics. I've visited Shark Bay in Australia and seen the stromatolites there up close. I'm currently developing a new piece of artwork about them. Fascinating creatures, they are a true missing link to our planet's past!

reef
acrylic on canvas
70x70"

Additional Links:

More information about Capitol Reef National Park, National Park Service.

Stromatolite Fossils found at Capitol Reef National Park.

Living Stromatolites at Shark Bay in Western Australia.