24" x 24"
acrylic, oil on canvas

I waited to do this piece, even though originally it should have corresponded with "Young Skin and How To See Light," because I couldn't then do what I've now done: show you just how superficially analytical I've become, so much so that often I create something better than the original...

If that doesn't sound fair, I don't mean it negatively; instead this neurotic way of seeing things--and I mean the coexistence of illusion and real, an obsessive focus to block out the ugly, the ugly to cover the mundane, etc--is sometimes a necessary means of seeing. "Reality" (from the perspective of an adventurous 19-year old) often presses itself up in your face and envelopes you in its sweaty folds and clammy grip. And without something to love, or something else to focus on, how do you 'get through' the mundane or even unpleasant thing that has positioned itself in front of you?

I've had to realize it's just there: the illusion of expanse, of a new frontier to chart out, and I look for it and live in it and watch it undulate up and down, from yellow to blue, across fluorescents and pastels and into the darkest blacks. Then it's over, and I'm done, and you (this time really "you," and not "I" disguised as "you") get something like what you see above.

Anyway, enjoy.