Put a Fork In It!

Put a Fork In It!
oil painting on canvas - black floating frame
21”x21"
 
This painting began as a meditation on decay—brown bananas past their prime, a pool of stagnant green water, a fence succumbing to time, an old cat in the foreground. The fork symbolized finality: things that are done, finished, over. "Put a fork in it," the working title declared with dark humor.
 
But something unexpected happened as the work evolved. The cat faded—literally—disappearing into the layers of paint as if experiencing the very impermanence the piece explored. What emerged instead was something more complex: tulips reaching upward, and a luminous sky that transforms the entire mood from melancholy to something more ambiguous and beautiful.
 
Now the painting exists in two states simultaneously. The decay remains—you can still sense it in the murky water, the weathered fence, the overripe fruit—but it's softened by impressionistic brushwork and a dreamy color palette of teals, golds, and greens. The swan, a symbol of both beauty and final songs, navigates between what was and what's becoming.
 
Rich impasto texture creates movement across the canvas, as if wind or memory itself is reshaping the scene. The painting asks: Is this about endings, or the grace we find within them? About things falling apart, or the unexpected beauty that emerges when we stop trying to hold on?
 
Like life itself, the work refuses simple categorization. It acknowledges loss while finding moments of light. It depicts decline while suggesting transformation. And like the cat that faded into its own landscape, it reminds us that even our attempts to capture finality are subject to change.