Pairs with:

Statement from the Artist:

I was trained in working from life in the Classical Realist Tradition by Auseklis Ozols, founder of the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. The first piece, "NOAFA Academy Nude", is my first successful life study in simply achieving a likeness, correct proportion and all that an academic student enjoys is observational drawing and painting. The second piece, "Alma, Blushing At The Universe," exemplifies my current application of academic study. While still working from life, I now use the figure as a vehicle of expression for things important to me, to evoke emotion or simply humor. Lately, I have been in awe of math, quantum physics and how they are a visual all around us. I never really understood that growing up. I love how echoes of mathematical patterns and quantum theorems are evident in pictures of the Universe, Nature, Hurricanes, our DNA, etc. It is all so awe-striking, beautiful and humbling to me. This portrait of Alma, drawn from life as a demo for my New Orleans Atelier, shows her blushing at the enormity of it all, spirals in her curls, like spirals in galaxies, the sun in her face and suns in the far distance. The math equations in the sky reference some of my daughter's Engineering homework, which have helped me in my recent curiosity. My hope is that the viewer, once seeing this piece and its title, might simply pause for a moment of reflection on the enormity of it all, and feel the humility and sense of amazement that these subjects bring me.