Fortunatae Insulae

These pink mountains happened on my canvas one day. Well I painted them, of course, but I was not consciously capturing a specific place. I wanted to paint something with volume, verticality, that didn’t exist, that was otherworldly. After painting a few, I realized they did come from somewhere (of course): my time in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, those surreal landscapes of the Canary Islands. With red and pink and green volcanoes, mountains bubbling up from the earth, it felt like being on another planet, whether that be Mars, or an imagined planet in another universe. At night, the mountain's presence loomed above, illuminated by the stars and moon, especially bright because of the dark sky status in the Canaries. 

This series, Fortunatae Insulae—Latin for "The Fortunate Islands"—draws its name from one of the earliest Greek and Roman writings about the Canaries. These paintings capture my subconscious experience of that otherworldly terrain. See my photos from Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.