INTO DISCOVERY is an oil on canvas measuring 6ft. X 2 ft.When I began working on this contemporary realist painting the shell, to me, symbolized a woman. It was my intention to represent a woman liberating herself from her familiar and safe environment and venturing out alone into the vast unknown, here embodied by the canvas. As the painting evolved, however, it gradually revealed its own intentions. The life-sized canvas asserted itself as the larger, total human form of no particular gender with the shell posing as a symbol for the heart. The heart is now venturing courageously away from its familiar safe haven of certainty and into the potentially dangerous milieu of love. The ocean inside roars with fear but the heart is persistent.
The following images are details.
