Never Lost City

April 2023

In the studio, this painting started with bright colors- yellow, lime green and light blue. The colors become darker greens and blues in the foreground. There are four marks made with wax crayons. The brightest is yellow/orange. This line carries your eye from the upper left to the lower right or vise versa. The paint is applied in wide swathes of paint, thinly veiled in some areas, and thicker in others. This painting is bold, energetic, and adventurous.

What do you see?

Never Lost City, 2022

I find it looks like a jungle. Layers of abundant canopies, light breaking through at different angles with hills and valleys of green. Perhaps I see water collecting on a large leaf or a waterfall cascading. It wasn’t until I stepped further back when I made a connection.

Recently I read The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. It is a true story with a long history of explorers and, more recently, passionate scientists searching for a lost city in a rainforest of Honduras. This city had been “lost” for over 500 years. Can a city be lost? What does it mean for a place (or person) to be “lost”? Was it gone, hidden, forgotten or abandoned? Needless to say, the story was captivating. It was interesting to read about the numerous risks involved with expeditions, potential physical danger, mysterious legends, how discoveries were made and various interpretations of the discoveries. The book was an escape from my daily life and so was making this painting.