Light in art is incredibly fragile. If you repeat the same brightness elsewhere in the drawing or painting, you kill the effect. If you are not forceful enough, it is dull. If you do not integrate it with space and form, it becomes superficially flat. I go to great lengths to protect and nurture light in my work and I thought how appropriate this image is. The man is holding his chest outwards, holding the space of light behind him. As if he were stating that you have to go through him to disturb the light. On the other side, his cast shadow is mirroring his stance covering the flank. There is something so right in having the shadow protecting the light.

The metaphor of the shadow protecting the light is interesting to me personally. An important part of my character is about goodness, light, learning/teaching. But I also have a dark side that understands manipulators and bad people. For example, I remember being used once, the only time in my lifetime--and I even had a sense of it then I preceded out of curiosity. I won't go into details, but I was not surprised. I think having ability to understand the dark side of things helps me protect my values.

Hand painted cobalt blue oil, 8-ply acid free rag board, uv glass (upon shipping uv plexi glass will be substituted.)