Past the Clearing, You Stand Alone (Night Oak 1)

2025, oil on linen, 14 x 11 x 1.5 in, walnut floater frame

A lone oak stands at the edge of darkness, lit by an unseen source that turns its branches electric against the deep night sky. Stripped of leaves, it reads almost like architecture—bone and structure revealed—asking you to see not the fullness of summer, but the endurance underneath it. In winter light, nothing can hide; what’s left is strength, memory, and the quiet resilience of what survives.

Neon tones run along the bark and limbs, suggesting a charge held inside stillness—a pulse that continues even when everything looks dormant. You’re invited to look closely: the edges seem to shimmer, the tree appears to hold its own heat against the encroaching blue. What stands alone here isn’t lonely, but sovereign—rooted, watchful, alive.

Trees have long carried the weight of time and endurance, witnesses to seasons, storms, departures, and return. In this painting, the oak keeps watch like a sentinel at the threshold, marking the line between clearing and forest, day and night, vulnerability and power. Its stillness is not an absence, but a presence you can feel.