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Ephemeral Atmosphere · 2023
Lava Flowing Through Form
Available · in the studio, Phoenix
Lava at the moment it becomes something — flow as the meeting point of destruction and creation, heat finding the form it was always moving toward.
Lava (2023) is a study in intensity — a painting that channels force, heat, and transformation. Though not found in rigid form, its emotional architecture is volcanic: built from pressure, eruptive in rhythm. This 48 x 48 inch mixed media painting belongs to the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, where volatility and energy coexist with grounded stillness.
The surface glows with deep crimson, molten orange, and blackened undertones. Paint builds and breaks like cooled magma — layered, textured, occasionally cracking. The piece moves diagonally, not with precision but with urgency. Every stroke is a push. Every smudge, a reminder of the fire beneath.
I created Lava during a moment of inner friction — when emotion didn’t rise neatly, but burst through the surface. The act of painting became a kind of pressure release, a controlled eruption. The work became not a picture of lava, but a feeling of it: heat turning into structure.
This painting resonates with the fierce materiality of Jean Dubuffet, whose raw surfaces and gestural forms defied refinement in favor of presence. Like Dubuffet, I see surface not as background, but as battlefield — where energy and texture collide.
Lava doesn’t destroy. It reshapes. It’s about what gets remade in the fire. As part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, this piece reminds us that even the most volatile moments leave behind new landscapes.
Where to see it. In person at RituStudio, Phoenix, by appointment. Represented by Jarrow & Goodman, Los Angeles.
The space it needs
- Wall
- At least 8 ft wide
- Ceiling
- 9 ft or more
- Light
- Natural light transforms this work — morning and evening light read differently
- Daylight
- Oxblood and deep madder run hot under afternoon Arizona sun, while viridian and oil-slick blue keep the flow from tipping over. A north or east wall holds the balance closest to how it was painted.
Lives best in
Living room 5/5
Lava Flowing Through Form earns its place here because the oxblood and deep madder veins moving through graphite black give a living room the one thing it needs most: something to return to.
Bedroom 4/5
The somber mood rating is real, but the soft lilac and muted white that surface at the edges of the eruption cool the composition enough that it reads as resolution rather than agitation by the time evening light reaches it.
Details
- Size
- 4 × 6 ft (W × H)
- Medium
- Acrylic on canvas
- Finish
- Epoxy over acrylic. The resin lifts the color off the canvas and holds it forward, so the surface deepens as the light moves across the room.
- Year
- 2023
- Collection
- Ephemeral Atmosphere
- Palette
- Graphite Black · Oxblood · Deep Madder · Charcoal Gray · Copper · Oil-Slick Blue · Muted White · Soft Lilac · Forest Green · Rich Purple · Deep Green · Viridian
- Weight
- About 45 lb
- Ready
- In the studio; delivery 6–10 weeks
Its ArtGram
ArtGram.Sprig
- Texture2
- Form2
- Colour range4
- Palette1.9
- Contrast4.3
- Abstraction Quotient3.5
