"De Las Semillas Del Nuestros Padres"

"De Las Semillas Del Nuestros Padres"
("From the Seeds of Our Fathers")
Full frontal standing female figure, that has botanical plants and flowers painted on it, first appearing as if the flowers were tattooed on her body, when viewed slower, it becomes obvious the figure is wearing a thin veiled body suit . Text surrounds the figure naming the scientific specimens of flowers adorning her body.

I had always been attracted and inspired the scholarship and quality of the botanical drawings of the German Botanist-Artist Basilius Besler.

This piece is a culmination of my love of the figure, the natural world, and language. The text is the plants' Latin and old German names.

The last few months of this painting was finished while while my father was dying of pancreatic cancer. It is a tribute to him and all of his influences on my life, all the "seeds" he had given me, literally in my physical human form, and all that he taught me planting seeds in my psyche, my heart and in my world.

I love figurative painting as it relates so honestly to our most intimate of life's experiences and the truism that "our bodies never lie". If we listen within, we become more aware of our surroundings and how we participate and become partners and creators in the dance of life. I like to emphasize the moments of stillness, the quiet reflection or the cusp of awareness, the pauses in between the breaths' inhalation and exhalation. These moments and cycles of life that are often taken for granted. I find that these are the places of connection, of understanding, of play and joy. And the more we are aware of these pauses, the more connected we all are with ourselves to each other and to our world.