Odilon’s Garden
48” x 36” x 3” acrylic on wood panel
Monarch Butterflies with some of the flowers they depend upon, including of course, milkweed, dahlia, beebalm, aster and echinacea.
This painting is inspired by a painting by Odilon Redon called “Evocation of Butterflies” I saw at the Muse’e d’Orsay in Paris. It does not have monarchs or colorful flowers, but I loved it and promised myself to create a work full of butterflies. I sketched the Monarch Butterflies first then could not resist the urge to feed them.
Redon painted haunting nightmare quality works in his early career then shifted to idyllic settings, with the hope and belief that promoting the good things in the world, life as it should be, would help to create that reality. Similarly, my career started with a focus on what is wrong in the world and evolved to a gentler imploring to create what is right in the world. I focus on this intent every day.
