Description
Surfacing at Daybreak
Acrylic on OSB, 24″ x 48″
I witnessed the 2018 lava flow enter the ocean at daybreak, and the moment filled me with awe — the collision of molten rock and water, the air thick with laze, that churning steam cloud born where fire meets sea. Part of my osb series, I choose to take something manmade and utilitarian, oriented strand board, and coax out of it a sense of mist, movement, and beauty — to let its fractured, splintered grain hold the same restlessness I felt standing there watching the island remake itself.
The reds and corals at the center are the exposed lava, still glowing, still moving. The grays and cooler tones pressing in from the edges are the steam and the pre-dawn sky, holding all that heat in check. Living here in Lower Puna, this wasn’t something I observed from a distance — it was happening around me, and this painting is my attempt to hold both the violence and the strange, surfacing beauty of that moment.
