Leaving behind them a trail of rosy carnage, they swim onward leaving bits of hope shining in the dark.

I’ve been thinking how to up the sea creatures, when I thought of Michel Gondry’s Tokyo clip where the girl turns into a chair. I liked that aesthetic mid transformation and she can reach through her rib cage which has turned into a chair back. I like that kind of emptiness where it seems the most vital substance should be. I thought it would be a little gloomy, so in the painting I wanted to have a bright little heart in the strange rib cage, but I didn’t want it to look cheesy like a valentine. An anatomic heart, I thought, and so I added veins that soon stretched outward and became branches. A part of me will always love flowers and trees because I can draw them without reference to a photo. They are lines that intersect and divide beautifully carving out a composition. I aim these flowers to be identified as dogwood, but they are also cherry-blossomesque. Art is all about interpretation, right? More to this series later. Perhaps a friendly shark and different architecture for the “rib windows”… multiple animals in one frame?