Notes from a European summer: Paris cafés, Burgundy fields, London light
This summer, I wandered the sunlit streets of Paris, sipped Chablis under striped café umbrellas, and let the golden light of long evenings etch itself into my memory. Between lazy afternoons in Burgundy and catching up with friends in London, I returned home brimming with new colors, flavors, and inspiration.
Maison Orangerie
R&F Oil Stick on Canvas | 36×48 inches | 2025 | Nature as a Cosmos Series
There is a particular quality of light that exists only in one place on earth.
You know it when you see it — that thick, golden Mediterranean warmth that turns white walls amber and blue shutters into jewels and ordinary orange trees into something from a dream. Maison Orangerie captures that light with the full, unapologetic confidence of an artist completely in command of their medium.
Two ancient orange trees frame the composition like sentinels, their dark sinuous branches spreading across the canvas in elegant arabesques, each one heavy with perfectly round fruit — dots of pure vermillion and cadmium blazing against the deep teal and green of the foliage like a constellation of small suns. Behind them, a white Provençal cottage sits in dappled shadow, its blue shutters cool and calm against the warmth of the trees, its roof a streak of electric blue that anchors the whole luminous scene.
This is nature and human habitation in their most perfect relationship — the house softened and half-hidden by the abundance of the orchard, the trees given purpose and meaning by the life lived beneath them. Neither complete without the other.
Painted in R&F Oil Sticks — professional grade pure pigment in oil wax, essentially oil paint in its most direct and expressive form — the surface has an extraordinary richness and depth. The marks are bold and decisive, the colour unmixed and pure, the whole canvas vibrating with the particular energy of a medium that demands commitment and rewards it with luminosity.
Part of the Nature as a Cosmos series, Maison Orangerie explores the profound interconnectedness of the cultivated and the wild — the human and the natural — the house and the orchard that has always surrounded it, season after season, harvest after harvest, without end.
✦ Original, one-of-a-kind painting ✦ R&F Oil Stick on canvas ✦ 36 × 48 inches ✦ Created 2025 ✦ Unframed ✦ Part of the Nature as a Cosmos series ✦ Free worldwide shipping — ships rolled in a tube
Stretched Canvas Delivery For collectors who prefer to receive this work pre-stretched and ready to hang, please note that due to its exceptional scale, oversized freight shipping costs are at the client's expense. I'm happy to provide a freight quote tailored to your location — simply contact me before purchasing. Alternatively, your preferred art handler or framer can stretch the canvas locally upon arrival.
The orchard. The house. The light. All of it, yours.
Maison Orange carries the memory of my Burgundy stay—
sunny orchards, quiet country houses, and the simple joy of summer in rural France
Nuits de Bourgogne
24” x 20”
Acrylic, collage, on 3D wood panel
* two hidden collage deer hide in the dark forest, coated in phosphorescent paint they glow in the dark
One of the cutest moments of our trip was spotting Walnut—the stray cat Jasper named last summer—emerging from the hedge outside the kitchen, this time with three tiny kittens tumbling behind her.
Mama cat knew we were good for high quality scraps and proceeded to dine out on some left over entrecôte, she devoured milk, she was still breast feeding herself. It was quite fascinating to watch, a real privilege because we don’t have cat’s at home, and I certainly wouldn’t take on the drama of a pregnant cat in my apartment willingly.
The kittens kept their distance all week, wouldn’t let us pat them, took Mama’s cue. Walnut was very hands on, scrawny bony small little cat. Probably on her 2nd or 3rd batch of kittens. I couldnt help but want to help her. She’s probably back to scrounging round the neighbors houses now.
Love these two iconic cat paintings, the left by Foujita, my soul brother from another lifetime, famous Japanese Parisian from the turn of the century. And of course Bonnard’s minou stretching his long legs out. This painting always cracked me up. It was the inspiration behind the Scaredy Cat painting.