Transformation Extended Version is a painting I created as both a ritual and a witness to change. Measuring 12x36 x2, it is built entirely in acrylic, with blacklight-reactive layers that reveal hidden dimensions when the light shifts. For six months, it lived in an office in Columbus, quietly holding space for others, before returning to me—its journey itself a reflection of transformation extended beyond the canvas.
In this work, butterflies emerge from their cocoons. Some remain enclosed, others are breaking free, and a few have fully unfurled into renewal. I painted them as living metaphors for the cycles of grief, resilience, and becoming. Each brushstroke was a devotional gesture, layered with intention, silence, and ritual. The textures swirl like emotional topographies—mapping the unseen labor of metamorphosis, the sacred pause before flight, and the miracle of emergence.
The blacklight-reactive pigments are essential to my method. They create a dual-light experience, where hidden words, shapes, and energies surface only in altered illumination. This mirrors the unseen work of transformation: the quiet, interior process that happens in shadow before it bursts into radiance.
My practice is shaped by ritual and lineage. I paint as an emotional archivist, embedding language, symbols, and layered textures that honor both vulnerability and resilience. Transformation Extended Version belongs to my Structures Undefined ethos, where intuitive composition and symbolic imagery create immersive environments. It is both a portal and a mirror—inviting viewers to honor their own cocoon, their own emergence, their own extended journey of becoming.
