Something happened when you saw this. What was it?
Abstract Inquiry · 2023
Monster Dream
Available · in the studio, Phoenix
The dream that contains something larger than the dreamer — abstract inquiry into what the monster is really for.
Monster Dream (2023) is a painting about the shadows that visit us in sleep — not to scare, but to reveal. This 48 x 48 inch mixed media piece from the Greyscale Collection captures the dream as terrain: murky, uncertain, and strangely alive.
The canvas pulses with smoky reds, tarnished silver, ochre, and oil-slick blues. Textures ripple and twist — some soft, others jagged. Shapes form and dissolve like creatures half-seen through fog. There’s no clear narrative, just emotional texture: anxiety, fascination, even tenderness. The monster isn’t the threat — it’s the guide.
I painted Monster Dream after a stretch of vivid dreams that left me wondering what my subconscious was trying to surface. I wasn’t afraid of the imagery. I was curious. This painting became a portal — not into nightmare, but into the archetype of what we suppress and what we can learn from it.
The piece recalls the emotional weight of Francis Bacon, though it trades his brutality for mystery. Like Bacon, I’m interested in what the body remembers when the mind forgets, and how paint can give form to that unspoken residue.
Monster Dream isn’t about monsters. It’s about the parts of ourselves that feel too strange or too strong to fully see when we’re awake. In the dream, they arrive. And in the painting, they remain.
As part of the Greyscale Collection, this work holds a space for the surreal — not as escape, but as encounter.
Where to see it. In person at RituStudio, Phoenix, by appointment. Represented by Jarrow & Goodman, Los Angeles.
The space it needs
- Wall
- At least 5 ft wide
- Ceiling
- 8 ft or more
- Light
- Natural light preferred — the resin catches it and the color shifts through the day
- Daylight
- Lampblack and spectral gray will not drift in color, but a bright window falling across the black flattens the mass. Out of direct sun, the pale light cut into it reads sharp.
Lives best in
Living room 5/5
Monster Dream rewards the room where people slow down. It changes on the second
Hotel lobby 4/5
Strong enough to hold an arrival space, intimate enough to reward a longer look.
Details
- Size
- 3 × 4 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
- Abstract Inquiry
- Palette
- Lampblack · Epoxy Resin · Spectral Gray
- Weight
- About 22 lb
- Ready
- In the studio; delivery 8–12 weeks
Its reading
Read on the six dimensions of ArtGraph.
- Texture1
- Form2
- Colour range1
- Palette4.2
- Contrast4.1
- Abstraction Quotient2.5
