The second in the AfrikaBurn Series, this one has been something of a puzzle for me.
The alternate view above is the reference image taken at AfikaBurn 2009 by Monica Miguel Vaccaro, and right from the start it went off on its own direction.
My usual approach to a photo I'm interested in painting is to remove the colour saturation to see where it might go from a monochrome base, but this time that didn't work. For no reason that I can recall it went the other way into an intense orange that got me so creatively fired up I had to go for a walk to slow down.
I'll occasionally put a hint of orange into a painting, but this is utterly unlike anything I've done before. Once I started on the actual canvas it dashed off and had the essentials in place in 2 or 3 hours, but then it slowed to a bewildered stop as I honestly didn't know what it to make of it. I put it on the back burner for a few months until eventually the energy began to move again and I filled in the depths.
The power that brought it into being became tangible at that point but I'm still not entirely sure what it is. Something deep and ancient, something arising from the global intelligence of the Earth perhaps.
The moon-like feature on the horizon is one of the architectural projects at that particular AfrikaBurn, a dome built of circles and ovals.
The original is now sold but prints are available at a smaller size.