This body of work marks a return to seascapes, a subject I cycle back to every few years. I’ll always feel a deep pull toward the sea. Sometimes I deny myself the subject matter, and then it returns in full force, like a wave.

These paintings are very dark, some nearly black. I felt compelled to make them. They’re deeply personal, as my work always is, I can’t make anything that isn’t. Often it feels as though the work makes itself, and I’m simply a vessel or conduit for it.

There’s a dark energy in them, but also something cosmic. Flecks of light surface throughout, small gestures of hope. I like to bring weather into the paintings, or at least the feeling of weather: fog, pale sunlight, sea spray.

The works may appear quieter and more restrained compared to other series but their underlying architecture is complex. The paintings are built through accumulations of translucent layers and shifting blending modes. Light is constructed gradually as sheer veils from within, the surrounding darkness is reinforced, grounding the work in depth and dimensionality.

Petra Cortright