Portrait of Two Horses

I think of beauty as a focus on proportions, harmony, and balance - all things that horses naturally are. As I painted this piece, I explored the imperfections of perfection, how wrinkles and warts and tension and little bits of "ugly" are what make up a beautiful whole. Embracing our blemishes. As a professional environmental scientist, I work with the organic, so painting on untreated raw birch wood panel to allowed me to work with a living, unpredictable surface, and to introduce natural warmth and dimensionality.