About this piece

The Great Wall near Beijing carries both weight and song — towers rising out of the mountains on a gloomy day that pressed brown into memory. Yet even under that heaviness, the awe of standing there came through — a sense of grandeur carried here in layered purples and blues.

This piece pulls the memory of the Great Wall into paint and paper, preserving the feeling of standing there. I built the background with layers of acrylic paint and botanical impressions on a gel plate. Then I hand-transferred my original photograph taken during my 2019 visit. The process lifts edges imperfectly, fusing grit and image into something that can't be repeated.