My latest work explores my experience of light while living in the far north. When I lived in Alaska, I experienced the long cold winter darkness filled with many wonders. In the winter the sun barely peeks over the horizon and its light holds no warmth. I grew accustomed to dimness and navigation by moonlight and starlight. All light feels slow and trapped within the cold and the world is quite and dreamy. On the coldest nights, minus twenty and colder, the air freezes and is filled with dancing ice crystals that form a bridge between the earth and the sky and it feels like the stars stretch from the ground to the infinite. The vast sky rules the long northern night and the queen of the sky is the northern lights, Aurora Borealis. Some times she flows like a crackling river from edge to edge. Other times she expands through the sky like fireworks in slow motion. With Polar Grid, I capture the way I experienced the northern light as a solid force that overlays and holds all other forms.
Polar Grid, 48"x48" acrylic on panel