The Artist’s Pause
12" x 12", Oil and Canvas
In the heart of an endless desert, a figure sat alone, his antlers casting long shadows across the cracked black-and-white chessboard stretching beneath him. Before him, a single delicate flower pushed through the lifeless ground, its petals trembling in the faint breeze. He didn’t touch it, only watched, his stillness blending with the landscape. Behind him, an enormous chess piece spiraled upward, its form caught between solid and surreal, as though it might collapse or complete itself at any moment. The figure waited, unmoving, as the clouds rolled gently across the sky. He was not in a hurry; the vision would come when it was ready. Until then, he remained, a quiet witness to the slow emergence of beauty from the barren unknown.