Ewige Licht

"Ewige Licht" means eternal light, and in this piece it needs no switch: under ordinary light and under ultraviolet, the canvas reads almost identically, as if the glow lived inside the paint itself rather than switching on from outside — as if it had always been there.

The elf's hair is a landscape more than an ornament: bands of braiding give way to a flower of life, and deeper in the pattern, mushroom caps hide, revealing themselves only on a second look. A forest grows straight out of her head — mycelium standing in for the memory of what connects all living things underground, long before that became a metaphor.

At her shoulder, a green flower opens, and beneath its petals, barely visible, a second eye watches — whose, each viewer decides for themselves. A striped, predatory muzzle reaches toward the flower from below: a tiger, perhaps, or a guardian, tamed exactly enough to accept the offering and no further.

A red ribbon runs the full length of the canvas's right edge — a pulse holding the composition taut from top to bottom. Near her elbow, a dense, scaled pattern crowned with jagged points: a throne, perhaps, or a coiled tail — for those able to look deep enough to tell.