“Standing in the stream” is derived from Buddhist philosophy. It’s about being open to experiences as they’re coming at us and recognizing there are multiple experiences happening at the same time, and that they are also impermanent. Always changing.
One of the things that’s really important to me is capturing sensory experiences from nature. In this painting, I was focused on the sensation of perhaps a dampness and a coolness that you might experience near a body of water or in the forest. It also captures the movement of air and wind through leaves or across the surface water. The painting is not intended as a description of a particular place but instead as an accumulation of different sensations.
Another area of Buddhist philosophy that’s very important is the idea of impermanence. That every experience is fleeting. In this triptych, the only three-part painting in this exhibit, I was interested in the passage of time. The palette is fairly consistent from one panel to the next, but the blues change as the light would have changed over time.
