Lava

Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 6ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2023
Collection: Ephemeral Atmosphere

Lava (2023) is a study in intensity — a painting that channels force, heat, and transformation. Though not found in rigid form, its emotional architecture is volcanic: built from pressure, eruptive in rhythm. This 48 x 48 inch mixed media painting belongs to the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, where volatility and energy coexist with grounded stillness.

The surface glows with deep crimson, molten orange, and blackened undertones. Paint builds and breaks like cooled magma — layered, textured, occasionally cracking. The piece moves diagonally, not with precision but with urgency. Every stroke is a push. Every smudge, a reminder of the fire beneath.

I created Lava during a moment of inner friction — when emotion didn’t rise neatly, but burst through the surface. The act of painting became a kind of pressure release, a controlled eruption. The work became not a picture of lava, but a feeling of it: heat turning into structure.

This painting resonates with the fierce materiality of Jean Dubuffet, whose raw surfaces and gestural forms defied refinement in favor of presence. Like Dubuffet, I see surface not as background, but as battlefield — where energy and texture collide.

Lava doesn’t destroy. It reshapes. It’s about what gets remade in the fire. As part of the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, this piece reminds us that even the most volatile moments leave behind new landscapes.