Pathos

Oil, oil stick, charcoal on canvas.

60x72x1.25"

In this close-up botanical abstraction, Darren B. Singer magnifies the architecture of plant life, transforming overlapping leaves into a dynamic field of color and form. The foliage—painted in layered shades of green, yellow, and blue—reveals prominent veins and subtle tonal shifts, suggesting both the structural integrity and metabolic complexity of each leaf. These forms feel both familiar and amplified, as if viewed through a microscope or remembered in a dream.
The background pulses with vibrant reds, blues, and pinks, creating a chromatic tension that energizes the composition. The contrast between the cool, verdant foreground and the warm, expressive backdrop evokes the duality of containment and expansion—of rootedness and environmental flux. Singer’s brushwork is bold and gestural, yet grounded in observation, capturing the vitality of plant surfaces as living, breathing membranes.
This painting exemplifies Singer’s ability to fuse scientific inquiry with painterly intuition. The leaves are not merely decorative—they are expressive agents of survival, adaptation, and beauty.