Sunsets, Water, and the Violence of Change

Sunsets are not soft. They are violent in their transformation—burning through the sky, shifting minute by minute, demanding to be seen before surrendering to darkness. They hold contradictions: romance and fear, hope and sadness, the promise of tomorrow and the death of today.

Growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, the ocean was always there, but like so many natives, I rarely stopped to take it in. We assume it will always be waiting. Yet, I dream of water constantly—not as a place of stillness, but as something alive, changing, pulling and receding, reflecting the world above it. Water is fluid, like gender, like identity, like resistance. Sunsets, too, are acts of defiance—refusing to dim, burning brightest just before disappearing.

In my work, I paint them not as backdrops, but as forces. The sky, the water, the light—they are never still, never silent, never asking permission to exist.