Circle Barbed Wire

Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2023
Collection: Geometric Splendor

Circle Barbed Wire (2023) is a painting about protection and pain — and how the two often intertwine. Part of the Geometric Splendor Collection, this 48 x 48 inch mixed media work brings together the visual elegance of symmetry with the sharpness of emotional boundaries.

The focal point is a loop — a circle that could be a crown, a fence, or a halo. But it’s not soft. It’s wrapped in barbed textures, etched and pulled into the surface like a memory that resists erasure. Around it, washes of steel blue, off-white, and rust echo the tension between beauty and harm.

I created Circle Barbed Wire while thinking about the emotional architecture we build — how we create shapes to guard our softness, and how those shapes often hurt. The circle, traditionally a symbol of wholeness, becomes a barrier here. Complete, but untouchable.

This piece aligns with the spirit of Louise Bourgeois, whose forms are both delicate and dangerous — holding trauma in tactile, intimate materials. Like Bourgeois, I’m drawn to contradictions: comfort and threat, roundness and rupture.

The painting isn’t about violence. It’s about resilience. About what it takes to hold space for oneself when the world feels sharp.

As part of the Geometric Splendor Collection, Circle Barbed Wire stands as both shield and offering — a visual mantra for boundaries that protect, even when they leave a mark.