Portfolio > Circles

Zero To Infinity
oil on canvas
48" x 48"
2023
white on blue grey circular oil painting
oil
17" x 17"
2020
Fire Ball
oil on panel
15" x 15"
2022
Armillary Sphere
oil
18" x 18"
2021
The Stars at Sea
oil
15 x 15
2021
star map on 4 canvas panels, oil painting
oil on canvas
84" x 84"
2020
Eternity with Waterfall
oil on panel
18" x 18"
2021
blue green circular oil painting on panel
oil on panel
24 x 24
2020
orange brush strokes on white, circular oil painting
oil
18" x 18"
2020
circular oil painting in orange and blue
oil
18" x 18"
2020
white on blue purple circular oil painting
oil on panel
18" x 18"
2020
 oil painting of white triangle on an indigo circle with light ball in the center space
oil
18" x 18"
2020
orange circle
oil
18" x 18"
2020
brown near-enso on white ground , oil on wooden panel
oil on panel
18" x 18"
2020
blue oil painting on circular wooden panel,
oil on panel
15 x 15
2020
green wave and ocher ground circular painting
oil
18" x 18"
2020
A Different Moon
oil
18" x 18"
2020
Dragon with Green Plum
oil
18" x 18"
2020
honey and silver abstract about energy emergence
oil on panel
18" x 18"
2019
Circle 9 Lonely Blue
mixed media
18" x 18"
2020
white brush strokes on green, circular oil painting
oil
18" x 18"
2020
Mountain and Wave
oil
18" x 18"
2021
The Moon Fell into the Ocean
oil and metallic leaf
18" x 18"
2021
Satellite Vortex
oil
17" x 17"
2020

Shapes carry emotional meaning, or so say the psychologists, the advertising designers and the interpreters of doodles.

Circles carry the feeling of wholeness, peace, infinity, the Eternal Void out of which all things arise and back to which all things return. Drawing circles feels soothing and people who are feeling fragmented sometimes draw them obsessively. In Zen-based calligraphy practices, drawing circles is a form of meditation.

Tringles, on the other hand, take their corners fast and sharp. They are focused and sparking with energy. A triangle is the caution sign on the drivers’ test, or like the triangle hidden in the FedEx logo, an arrow going from point A to point B, just passing through, headed anywhere but here.

Circles aren’t going anywhere. They don’t need to, because, for a circle, Everywhere is Here.

During this endless anxious year of 2020, year of Covid-19, elections, and protests, I found myself obsessively painting circles, presumably looking for wholeness and peace. But then, tired of not going anywhere, I would put triangles and pointy shapes ricocheting around inside, or cram it with breaking waves or thunder clouds. Occasionally the circles look like planets or moons that we haven’t discovered yet. One of them gazes out on some deep space explosion, but in this case the explosion is distant enough to feel more like starlight than disaster. A couple of the circles look like a variation on the iconic yin-yang symbol. But in most of the paintings it isn’t just a yin-yang duality. There is a third element: a shape that symbolizes something precious and full of fragile possibility-- a flame, a seed, an egg… something that deserves to be fiercely guarded. Something not ready to be born yet. An infinity nested inside another infinity, waiting, hoping to survive long enough to begin.