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Gratitude

The gratitude collection began to materialize in the early days of 2025, and continues to grow in its physical form, but the philosophical idea behind it precedes it by many years. My artistic practice had long been centered around the process of grief , presenting itself in many ways; the tragic death of a parent, the heartbreaking loss of a lover, a dismantling of self and attachment to the way we thought things were “supposed to be”, how we imagine it “should’ve gone.” When we frame it in that context, we come to realize grief is never ending. One would be remiss to deny the call to action to reshape our own perceptions, less they be our downfall.

Here arrives gratitude, the inconspicuous result of griefs transformative nature. Through contemplation of the divine truth of life that is beginning and end, we come to find that all is impermanent. It would seem our only option in this awareness of impermanence is to pay attention to the passing phenomena of transient form, which, one could argue, it seems we have a debt of gratitude to the individualized and unique presentation each of us is receiving from moment to moment. This is surrender to the eternal now. We are all taking existence all too seriously while (comedically so) living inside something utterly absurd; a bizarre and beautifully tragic journey of conscious experience ever unfolding in this passage of time. Surrender is really our last resort, be it not your choice, death will eventually come to force your hand, as all life ends in the surrendering of form, the transformation of Self. The more we acknowledge this inevitability of sufferings end, the more we begin to cultivate a joyous equanimity for the process. In striving for this equanimity, devotion to gratitude seemed to me the obvious path to surrender into. Through this surrender came an emptying of self, and through this emptying of self, the negation of individuality, came liberation.

The four sided cross shows up in basically every culture as far back as our documentation of human history will allow us to see, but my personal obsession came by way of the medical cross; a symbol of healing, the transformation of suffering into joy, for which at the center of one could only find gratitude, and thus the gratitude cross came to be. From the jump each individual idea seemed so simple it was almost too good to be true. The juggernaut collection preceding this series of works was so technically involved that it was hard to believe something as stripped back as a large piece of canvas with some crosses on it would at all work. One by one, as each piece came together, they were all, in their own right, not only profoundly interesting to make, but undeniably provoking to witness at the end, and as I began to share them with a small circle of trusted colleagues, it was clear I was not the only one who thought it so.

The gratitude project was in the beginning conceptualized merely as a collection of paintings centered around the repetition of the gratitude cross, but has since revealed itself to be far greater than that; a series of prayers and mantras shaping everyday experience, a space within which one could revere as a temple, and a daily practice of devotion, surrender, and equanimity; an inexhaustible well of joyous appreciation for the present moment and all it has to offer. Inherent in all is an infinite love for a finite existence, moment to moment, body to body, dust to dust.