The Golden Rule
2022, enamel, oil sticks, resin on panel, 96 x 60”

Along the Hudson River in New York City, a series of grand porticos offer quiet, formal places to pause—thresholds between city and river, architecture and nature. This painting captures one in particular: the columned terrace at Ulysses Grant’s tomb on the Upper West Side. A place where you can stop time for a moment, and watch sunlight filter through the trees in layered brilliance.

The Golden Rule is about that pause. That merging of the monumental and the ephemeral. The architecture is rendered in deep blues and purples, while the surrounding garden explodes in shifting light and color. Using oil sticks, I filled the canvas with hand-drawn circles, symbols, and lace-like patterns—a prism of energy breaking across the surface.

What began as a view became a kind of portal. A place to witness beauty, order, nature, and humanity all colliding into one glowing instant. This is not just about the Hudson, or even the trees—it’s about reverence.

NFS