Seeking Purchase

This is Kevin Sloan, I live and work in Denver Colorado.

My painting “Seeking Purchase” is part of a series of large scale paintings which start with the idea of an atypical bouquet, hanging from the top of the painting rather than in a vase for example. In this case, I used an actual orchid type, odontoglossum as a reference.

My intention was to create an otherworldly image of opulence and very odd beauty. The world we see here is a steamy, flooded environment in which the enormous orchid, oranges, limes and other flora are suspended above the wet world below. Hanging on the bottom of the orchid are numerous Monarch butterflies.

The butterflies are “seeking purchase”, meaning they are trying to find something to hold on to, perhaps for safety in this challenging environment. They cling to the orchid and to each other. And, what appears to be stable is actually in flux, limes and oranges start to fall down, the fog obscures and reveals, the orchid itself seeks a place to attach its aerial roots. While lush and beautiful, it’s also a tenuous situation, perhaps no different than the world each of us exists in every day.