This series of portraits attempts to reveal the breathtaking, the sensual, the stark and the mysterious underlying the obvious façade of the garden. Exploring our inner and outer landscapes, our various colors and forms, our shadow and light, has been my main preoccupation as an artist. In previous series I have used the body to explore this territory but in Sophia’s Garden the portraits are the metaphor. In a garden change is ever present from moment to moment or year to year. Living in the country impresses on us the power of the land, its rhythms with the seasons; the great cycle of life from birth to death to rebirth. In this series each portrait is a square with the works hung on a straight line as a way to organize and make clear the relationships, and as a way for each work to occupy the same amount of space, much the same way as we attempt in our gardens to impose upon nature. Each work is printed on a 24 in paper support [which gives a skin like quality] and is to be mounted with earth magnets. The works are encased with encaustic medium, which protects the paper, adds luminosity and completes the cycle of transformation. 1

1. From trees to pulp to paper, with the bee’s wax and damar resin vital in protecting the portraits, just as the bees are vital to pollinating our landscape.