Catch Light (Mother and Child)

Oil, oil stick, enamel, pastel, & more on linen.

24x35"

Materials: oil, oil stick, enamel, flashe, charcoal, pastel, Conté, acrylic, and pumice on linen

Catch Light extends my experiments with materially heterogeneous painting: using different substances not simply for their appearance, but for the different kinds of marks, surfaces, and physical behavior they introduce into a single image.

The mother appears in two simultaneous poses, holding her swaddled child first on her lap and then against her chest. Smoke rises in gritty charcoal but begins at the forest floor in tarry black enamel. In the background, a figure kindles a flame in oil stick. Pastel and volcanic glass build the trees and canopy. The swaddled child is worked repeatedly in thick oil paint, pastel, and pumice, scraped back and layered again until the blanketed form becomes the most physically built-up area of the painting.

These shifts in material parallel the instability of the scene: tenderness and danger, protection and exposure, a body held close against an environment that appears capable of changing at any moment.

Catch Light premiered in Works/San José’s Hold Fast! exhibition in San Jose, California, July 26–August 22, 2026.