Beneath the Deep, We Dream

2025, oil on linen, 10 x 8 x 1.5 in, walnut floater frame

Two sides of an oyster shell—one turned outward, one revealing its inner surface—rest against a luminous field of deep blue. The pigment catches and reflects light as you move, echoing the way the ocean changes with tide, weather, and point of view. The shells become more than objects; they carry the weight of what they once protected and the quiet mystery of what remains unseen.

Oysters are emblems of resilience and transformation—creatures that turn grit into something luminous. In still life traditions, shells often stand for what endures beyond the body: echoes of time, remnants of tides, vessels for memory. Here, the open shell glows with iridescent light, a reminder of what can be revealed when defenses soften; the closed shell keeps its secrets, patient and silent.

The painting asks you to slow your looking, to sit for a moment with the tension between interior and exterior worlds—what is shown and what is kept. Like dreams, oysters hold layered histories beneath a hard surface, their beauty and meaning available only to the kind of attention that lingers.