Forest Fire: Confronting Destruction and Renewal

Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2020

Forest Fire (2020) is part of my ReThink Collection, a body of work that emerged from an urgency to examine how our environments — both internal and external — are altered by forces of chaos, destruction, and rebirth. Created in acrylic on canvas, this 48 x 48 inch painting captures a moment of violent beauty, where the flickering gestures of fire blur into abstraction, consuming yet illuminating at once.

In this work, I layered bold strokes of red, orange, and black against a field of smoky grays and whites, allowing the pigments to bleed and resist in unpredictable ways. The composition is deliberately restless, evoking the consuming energy of a forest fire while simultaneously hinting at the fragile ecosystems left in its wake. The fire here is not only an environmental force but also a metaphor for personal transformation — a space where old forms are destroyed to make way for something unnamed, not yet visible.

As I painted Forest Fire, I found myself resonating with the work of Julie Mehretu, whose monumental abstractions often reflect sociopolitical turmoil through layered, map-like marks and chaotic energies. Like Mehretu, I wanted the work to carry a sense of urgency, turbulence, and layered time. But where Mehretu charts urban unrest, Forest Fire is rooted in natural cycles, reminding us that destruction is not always an end but a necessary space for renewal.

This painting is an invitation to confront the discomfort of collapse — to see within it the seeds of regrowth, the beauty of impermanence, and the wild necessity of letting go.