skin\bones

Touche Gallery | Jacksonville, Florida | January 16 - February 20, 2026

skin \ bones is a series of monumental paintings that reimagines tree forms as psychological portraits: counterpoints to and metaphors for the human condition. Singular but interconnected, extraordinary yet mundane, these arboreal figures persist in their becoming, often in spite of devastating damage.

Overwhelming and intimate, tender and gestural, each piece records a quiet rebellion: a retreat from the noise of contemporary life towards something essential: that which is already sacred in each of us.

The series asks the question: What if holiness lies not only beyond our humanity, but within the depths of it?

I believe that, at our best, humans possess an incomprehensible capacity for connection, emotion, and expression. Yet, these soul affirming impulses often exist in tension with the constructive architecture of societal pressures. Systems that force us to contract and hoard; to disguise feelings and flatten complexities.

Trees as individuals and forests embody so many qualities we're taught to suppress, offering us profound wisdom about authentic existence, outside of the tight margins of control. That they do this without words, magnifies their message because it forces a more deliberate interaction and focus. I recall one tree in particular: a 400 year old oak, taking up space and making her environment richer. I'd spent so much effort trying to make myself smaller in every way, yet this matriarch was there the entire time, patiently waiting for me to finally notice the obvious: smaller isn’t always better.

These images are painted on raw, unstretched canvas evoking immediacy and material honesty. Grounded in observation yet animated by gestural and expressive mark-making, the act of painting mirrors the physicality of the subject matter. Brushwork unfolds as a rhythmic negotiation between abstraction, impressionism, and lucidity. The monumental scale acknowledges the primordial grandeur of these ancient beings, while the unfinished edges of the canvas speak to the vulnerabilities of perpetual becoming.

Photos by Kristin Cronic