A birch reflected. Mirror calm pond. How utterly simple; direct yet rivetingly powerful idea of tranquility. This meditation on eternity, this merging of opposites, isolates the essence of a pond illumintaing the small part of the whole, and so becoming the very symbol of that which it represents. Once again we have presented the effect of abstraction while actually painting in a realistic way the isolated element that signifies with utmost economy, the wider scene.

Spring, summer and fall are wonderful. And the birth to death cycle, a tad linear in its plodding progression does lead us to winter. Winter, takes my breath away. Chaotic, unpredictable, repeatedly trying to overwhelmingly please by dressing up all night in white to show off come magical morning.

The landscapes are meditative in so far that our underlying and connecting commitment to Nature through them is all about light and water, neither of which can be painted directly. Treating light as pure source the paintings are an expression/realization of its effects; water being transparent, always different, lets us explore/express it through the very reflections that try to confine it._ You will find something more in woods than in books._ Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. _ ~Saint Bernard (1090 - 1153), Epistle__ To purchase any works in the online gallery please contact us at micheal@zarowsky.net

Never one to be contained by any medium, we have over the years made continuous leaps forward to take the watercolour medium in new directions opening new possibilities, and have once again done so here. For over a year now, I have now been painting with watercolours directly on gessoed norwegian birch panels. Working on gessoed panels isn’t much fun, being akin to painting on kitchen counter top with every stroke beading up streaking, smearing, misbehaving like so much split coloured water, but I am dazzled by the new possibilities in textures, the visual strength, immediacy and directness of the finished paintings; the results have a 'terse-ness' to them. The paintings are finished by painting around the edges and as such can be hung without a frame or floated in a float frame. To secure the watercolour I lightly apply 2 coats of spray fixative, and once dry, lay on 2 coats of matt varnish, just as any oil or acrylic, to seal it permanently against the elements. Having scoured the internet for anyone else working in the same way, & unable to find a soul painting watercolours directly onto gessoed panels, I find myself, for a brief moment anyways, in a unique position creating something never been done before.

The paintings are impressions of the particular. Unique moments in time. Individual meditative moments, quiet places that neither reveal themselves easily, nor ask anyone to specifically to come there, single natural pearls antecedent to / breaking free of any necklaced existence.