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Ephemeral Atmosphere · 2021
My Valentine
In a private collection
Love held atmospherically — not a heart, not red, but the feeling of being someone's specific landscape.
My Valentine (2021) is a love letter left open — not polished, not perfect, but real. Part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, this 48 x 48 inch acrylic painting explores intimacy through texture, tone, and restraint. It captures love not as an ideal, but as a fleeting, felt presence.
Soft reds blend into pale pinks, with undertones of lavender and grey. The surface is layered like skin: vulnerable, weathered, warm. Delicate brushstrokes meet moments of friction — as if emotion has been gently pressed into the canvas. The effect is tender and unresolved.
This work was created around Valentine’s Day, but it resists the commercial imagery often associated with it. Instead, My Valentine asks: what does love look like in memory? In grief? In imperfection?
It shares sensibilities with Etel Adnan, whose abstract landscapes are as much about feeling as they are about place. Like Adnan, I let color speak quietly — not to declare, but to hold. The painting is intimate, almost private. A kind of emotional atmosphere you wander into.
There’s no literal heart. No symbol. Just space — saturated, fragile, open. My Valentine is about what remains when love is stripped of performance.
As part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, this piece whispers. It doesn’t need to shout. It’s a moment of presence, a breath held between longing and grace.
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 transforms this work — morning and evening light read differently
- Daylight
- Vermilion over oxblood at low contrast is the combination strong sun treats worst: west light heats the red while washing out the subtle differences. Indirect light or a north wall lets the quiet register.
Lives best in
Living room 5/5
My Valentine earns the living room wall because its vermilion and oxblood hold a conversation across the day, reading as urgency in morning light and as quiet grief by evening, giving the room a pulse that changes without demanding attention.
Bedroom 4/5
At mood 2 and rooted in tenderness rather than passion, the dark gloss passages and oxblood ground ask for low, warm light to open them fully, which the bedroom provides and most other rooms in a home do not.
Details
- Size
- 4 × 4 ft (W × H)
- Medium
- Acrylic on canvas
- Year
- 2021
- Collection
- Ephemeral Atmosphere
- Palette
- Vermilion · Dark Gloss · Oxblood
- Weight
- About 22 lb
Its ArtGram
ArtGram.Samara
- Texture2
- Form4
- Colour range3
- Palette5
- Contrast1.7
- Abstraction Quotient-5
