Embers of Stillness

Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Embers of Stillness is a quiet, earth-toned abstract that evokes the feeling of a fading landscape or a memory settling into silence. Soft horizontal layers of umber, sienna, taupe, and muted teal create a gentle sense of depth and atmospheric distance, like mist drifting over distant ground.
Subtle incised markings and faint traces of line are embedded within the surface, suggesting remnants of history or lived experience - nearly erased, yet still present. The restrained palette and softened transitions between light and dark give the work a meditative, grounding presence, inviting slow looking and quiet reflection.

Inspiration:
This painting was inspired by moments of stillness that follow emotional or physical intensity - the quiet after a storm, the warmth left in embers after a fire has burned low, or the calm that settles after deep reflection. I was drawn to the idea of surfaces that hold memory: landscapes shaped by erosion, walls marked by time, and places where traces of presence remain long after movement has passed.

Artist Statement:
My work explores texture and layering as emotional and temporal records. Working in acrylic, I build surfaces through washes, scraping, and intuitive mark-making, allowing earlier layers to remain partially visible. In Embers of Stillness, I wanted the surface to feel worn, gentle, and quietly luminous - like a landscape shaped by time and memory. Each mark becomes a trace of presence, and each layer a moment held in suspension between disappearance and remembrance.