Return (2025)

This painting is another in series of highly saturated landscapes of familiar paths. I titled it "Return" because I returned to a photo reference I had painted over three years ago. This "return" also refers to God's call to return to Him, to return to prayer, to return to walks in nature where He often meets with me and helps me settle body, soul and spirit. I am not the person I was three years ago, and I think the contrast between these two paintings reflects that.

In the previous painting, "Lift Up Your Head" (2022), I began by painting the canvas nearly black, then painted in the light areas. As I wrote at the time,

"I had been deeply engrossed in thought, finding as I often do that my eyes were on the ground, when I heard 'lift up your head' and saw the light streaming through. Amazing how lifting your head can adjust your perspective. And I was reminded in painting this that when the shadows are the darkest, it's means the light is most visible as well."

For the new version, I began with a bright orange background and pushed the color saturation way up on the reference photo (this is the benefit of now using my I-pad to modify reference photos!) and on my palette. Instead of having the light dramatically streaming into the darkness, the light now illuminates the foliage with bright contrasting colors, implying that the Light is ever-present, lighting up everything upon which it falls.

I have been using highly saturated color because I want to express the joy of the Lord in this series, reflecting on His work in my life as He has walked with me through a dark season. While these two paintings represent the same location, they have different emotional impacts, yet both reveal the words I hear and the work God is doing as I walk with Him along familiar paths.

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21)