Abstract Muse: Vibrant Exploration of Presence

Medium: Mixed Medium on Canvas
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2024
Collection: Hand-painted Photography

Abstract Muse is a layered meditation on presence—where realism and abstraction meet in a vibrant, living surface. At its core is a seated figure, recognizable yet transformed. The work began as a photograph, printed onto canvas, and then reimagined through paint—each layer disrupting, softening, and deepening the original image.

The figure is animated through bold strokes and saturated color: yellow hair, blue arms, a red top. These elements don't describe the subject so much as evoke a mood. The background—textured in shifting shades of blue—surrounds the form like atmosphere. It’s less a setting than an emotional field.

This process—painting over a photographic base—allows something unexpected to emerge. The photograph grounds the piece in reality, while the layers of paint abstract it into something more elemental. A gesture becomes a memory. A line becomes breath. The clarity of the lens gives way to the ambiguity of feeling.

What remains is not a portrait, but a presence. A sense of someone. Or perhaps, the echo of a moment. Abstract Muse doesn’t ask to be decoded. It asks to be felt. The tension between what is seen and what is suggested creates space for the viewer to enter—to wonder, to interpret, to remember.

This piece is part of my ongoing inquiry into the relationship between photography and painting, image and interpretation. In Abstract Muse, I’m less interested in likeness and more in essence—what lingers when form dissolves into emotion.