Owl Eyes

13 in x 21 in

3/2026

My intention for this piece was to explore interactions between many shades of orange, laid down in a symmetric grid made up primarily of circles and arcs.  I included transparent, opaque and metallic acrylics, and used several impasto techniques to give textural interest.  When it was done, I positioned the canvas in a portrait position (longer vertically than horizontally), but when I showed it to my daughter and her boyfriend, they asked to see it “on its side”.  In the landscape position, the painting evoked two large owl eyes with a beak in between, hence its name.

 “Owl Eyes” rests on a strong bilateral axis, so the two circular “ocular” clusters read immediately as paired eyes, but they are nested in a broader horizontal mandala that stretches edge to edge. The dominant rusts, oranges, and umbers give the work a nocturnal, autumnal heat.  Alternating smooth and stippled or crinkled surfaces create a quiet tension between the mechanical precision of the grid and the physicality of the paint used to fill in the grid.  The textured segments read almost like plumage or bark, adding a tactile animal and woodland association that deepens the titular reference without resorting to figuration.  Because no single motif dominates, the viewer toggles between reading the image as two watchful eyes, four overlapping orbs, and a continuous tessellated band, which mimics the way an owl’s stare feels both fixed and strangely shifting.