The Keeper is not a painting you look at once. It's a painting that keeps looking back.
It began in late winter in my Lowcountry studio, when everything outside looks dormant but is actually holding its breath. I built the surface first — layers of torn tissue, gesso, and old brush cleanings — like skin, like a letter folded and unfolded too many times. That wrinkled, tactile ground is intentional. It catches light differently at 7am than it does at 5pm.
Then came the color — not planned, but excavated. Smoked plum, dusty mauve, antique rose, a bruised violet that only appears in the marsh at dusk, tarnished gold buried underneath. I painted over it, sanded it back, painted again.
The lines are the last part. I scored them with the back of the brush into the wet paint — root systems, river maps, veins, the lines in a palm. They are the keepers. The things that hold the chaos together.
And then in the bottom right, she appeared. I didn't paint her, she surfaced.
A ghostly figure — soft, luminous, half in the plaster, half out. Some collectors see a woman in a pale dress looking away. Others see two figures standing close, like a memory of someone you used to know. I left her exactly as she came through. She is the keeper of the quiet part of the painting. The part that watches while the roots do their searching above.
Everyone sees something different in those branches. But everyone finds her.
The ornate vintage frame is intentional — soft, wild, feminine chaos held by history and structure. It's signed in the lower right, just above where she rests.
This is a quiet, powerful anchor painting. It doesn't shout. It stays — and it keeps you company
Medium: Heavily textured mixed-media on canvas — built tissue collage, gesso relief, acrylic, metallic gold leaf, and incised sgraffito — in substantial ornate carved wood frame with deep espresso wash. Sculptural surface.
Palette: Smoked Plum, Mauve Haze, Antique Rose, Aubergine Mist, Tarnished Gold, Washed Lavender, Slate Blue, Bone White, Raw Umber.
Vibe: Romantic Wabi-Sabi / Quiet Luxury / Heirloom Abstract — introspective, feminine, haunted in the gentlest way.
Dimensions: 43 inches x 55 inches
The Keeper is not a painting you look at once. It's a painting that keeps looking back.
It began in late winter in my Lowcountry studio, when everything outside looks dormant but is actually holding its breath. I built the surface first — layers of torn tissue, gesso, and old brush cleanings — like skin, like a letter folded and unfolded too many times. That wrinkled, tactile ground is intentional. It catches light differently at 7am than it does at 5pm.
Then came the color — not planned, but excavated. Smoked plum, dusty mauve, antique rose, a bruised violet that only appears in the marsh at dusk, tarnished gold buried underneath. I painted over it, sanded it back, painted again.
The lines are the last part. I scored them with the back of the brush into the wet paint — root systems, river maps, veins, the lines in a palm. They are the keepers. The things that hold the chaos together.
And then in the bottom right, she appeared. I didn't paint her, she surfaced.
A ghostly figure — soft, luminous, half in the plaster, half out. Some collectors see a woman in a pale dress looking away. Others see two figures standing close, like a memory of someone you used to know. I left her exactly as she came through. She is the keeper of the quiet part of the painting. The part that watches while the roots do their searching above.
Everyone sees something different in those branches. But everyone finds her.
The ornate vintage frame is intentional — soft, wild, feminine chaos held by history and structure. It's signed in the lower right, just above where she rests.
This is a quiet, powerful anchor painting. It doesn't shout. It stays — and it keeps you company
Medium: Heavily textured mixed-media on canvas — built tissue collage, gesso relief, acrylic, metallic gold leaf, and incised sgraffito — in substantial ornate carved wood frame with deep espresso wash. Sculptural surface.
Palette: Smoked Plum, Mauve Haze, Antique Rose, Aubergine Mist, Tarnished Gold, Washed Lavender, Slate Blue, Bone White, Raw Umber.
Vibe: Romantic Wabi-Sabi / Quiet Luxury / Heirloom Abstract — introspective, feminine, haunted in the gentlest way.
Dimensions: 43 inches x 55 inches