What Was Given to Us began with a question I keep coming back to: how much of life do we move through without being able to see the whole path?
The painting shows two blindfolded figures. One sits in front while another stands behind, hands resting on the shoulders. A large gold circular form sits behind them, surrounded by deep navy, black, and a cool cyan glow.
I wanted the image to feel intimate and protective, but not completely comfortable. Trust can contain both of those things.
The blindfold as a condition, not an answer
The blindfolds are not meant to explain a literal event. They create a condition: neither figure has complete visual certainty.
That opened the painting toward ideas of trust, guidance, dependence, faith, and vulnerability. If you cannot see everything ahead of you, what do you rely on? Your own instincts? Another person? What you were taught? What was passed down to you?
I didn’t want the painting to resolve those questions for the viewer. The ambiguity is part of the work.
What we inherit
The title, What Was Given to Us, widened the image beyond the relationship between the two figures. “Given” can mean care and protection, but it can also mean beliefs, fears, responsibilities, traditions, expectations, and ways of moving through the world that we never consciously chose.
Some inheritance helps us navigate uncertainty. Some inheritance can become another kind of blindfold.
That tension is where the painting lives for me.
Why the gold circle matters
The large gold form behind the figures introduces a sacred visual language without forcing a single religious reading. Against the dark field and cool blue light, the circle can feel protective, ceremonial, or even like a source of authority.
I wanted it to give the figures monumentality while leaving the emotional relationship unresolved. The work can hold tenderness and dependence at the same time. It can suggest protection while still asking what happens when one person has to trust what they cannot fully see.
Moving without certainty
A lot of my figurative work is interested in the moment before an answer arrives. I’m less interested in illustrating a conclusion than in creating a visual situation where several meanings can exist at once.
In this painting, the figures are physically close, but both are blindfolded. That matters. Guidance does not necessarily mean certainty. The person supporting you may also be moving through something they cannot completely see.
What Was Given to Us is about that space: what we inherit, what we trust, what we carry for each other, and how we keep moving when the entire path is not visible yet.
You can view the one-of-one original painting or the fine art print.