Monet’s Pond is my mixed media, oil over acrylic 30 X 40 inch painting inspired by a photograph I took while visiting Giverny, France, in 2016.
For many years, visiting Claude Monet’s home, studio, gardens, and water lily pond had been a personal aspiration. Like countless artists before me, I was drawn not only by the beauty of the place but by its significance in the history of painting. Walking through the gardens, I found myself less interested in recreating a famous image and more interested in understanding what Monet himself may have experienced there—the interplay of light, reflection, color, and atmosphere that transformed an ordinary pond into one of the most celebrated subjects in art.
In this painting of my photograph, actors in era sensitive costumes, drift quietly among the lilies, collecting the flowers while reflections dissolve distinctions between water, sky, and garden. The scene exists somewhere between observation and memory, between a specific place and the feeling it leaves behind.
As with many of my paintings, this work explores the relationship between place and lived experience. Certain locations remain with us long after we leave them. Giverny is one of those places. This painting is both a remembrance of a meaningful journey and a tribute to the enduring ability of beauty to inspire creativity across generations.