Chincoteague
A paint-speckled pinto or Appaloosa horse stands in the lower portion against a vibrant abstract background of magenta, purple, turquoise, and coral. A large circular form (possibly a moon or planet) dominates the upper left in golden-amber tones with turquoise edges. Heavy texture and pour painting techniques create atmospheric, dreamlike quality. A spotted horse stands beneath a moon that remembers being something else—perhaps planet, perhaps portal, perhaps simply the circular shape that consciousness makes when it looks inward. The horse wears its spots like constellation map, brown and white patches arranging themselves into meaning the way stars do, random yet somehow inevitable. The background erupts in magenta and purple, turquoise bleeding through like sky through storm, coral and pink suggesting sunrise or the interior of certain shells. This is Chincoteague's wild pony made mythic, the feral herds that swim between Virginia islands every summer in footage that seems impossible—horses in ocean, heads above waves, an annual migration between land and land that requires trusting water. The painting captures that quality of creatures existing between elements, belonging fully to neither land nor sea yet navigating both with inherited skill. The large circular form dominates like celestial body witnessing, like the eye of some cosmic animal watching this small horse navigate impossible color fields. The texture builds and layers, paint poured and splattered and carefully placed, creating surface that's part weather system, part emotional landscape. The horse appears calm within the chromatic chaos, as though wildness recognizes wildness, as though one who swims oceans annually can certainly handle purple skies. This piece understands that domestication is always temporary, always negotiable, that under the thinnest veneer of human contact these horses remember being entirely their own, making their own decisions about which island to graze, when to swim, where to shelter from coastal storms that reshape geography with every season. ```
Details
An original mixed media artwork, rich with surreal symbolism and tactile intrigue. Each layer is meticulously built upon a heavy-duty stretched canvas using a myriad of materials, inviting the viewer into a world of texture and depth. Created with professional archival paints and sealed for protection, this piece is designed to endure. The included collage elements are printed with archival inks on fine art papers, ensuring the vibrancy lasts for generations.Size
14x11Materials & Techniques
mediums/materials: phosphorescent paints, found objects, paper, wax, photo collage, oxidative inks, distress paint and inks, acrylic pouring, digitally altered images, acrylic paint, watercolor, spray paint, walnut ink, staining mediums, tissue paper, mica powders, glitter, heavy gel medium, gesso, pebeo prism and fantasy paints, ceramic paint, stained glass paint, alcohol inks, iridescent inks, distress crayons, charcoal, pastels, oil pastels, string, beads, jewelry, gems, chains, buttons, foils, newspaper, vinyl, plastic, walnut inks, india ink, colorshift paints and more!Hidden Images & Elements
The Chincoteague ponies are actually feral rather than wild—descendants of domestic horses that either escaped or were deliberately released on the barrier islands centuries ago. They've adapted to harsh coastal conditions, developing smaller stature and hardy constitutions, thriving on salt marsh grasses that would sustain few other equines. Their annual swim across the channel during "Pony Penning Day" has become legendary, a spectacle that draws thousands but which the horses have been doing far longer than humans have been watching. This swim represents adaptability, the ability to navigate between worlds, comfort with transformation and temporary displacement. The spotted coat pattern (pinto or Appaloosa) creates natural camouflage in dappled light but here becomes decorative, almost celestial—the horse as living constellation, each mark a star in personal cosmology. Different cultures see different shapes in the same stars; perhaps different viewers see different meanings in these same spots. The large circular form could be moon (governing tides these horses must understand to survive), planet (suggesting cosmic perspective on this small earthbound creature), or portal (threshold to elsewhere, the liminal space these horses inhabit). Its golden-amber color with turquoise edge creates visual rhyme with the horse's brown and white coloring, suggesting kinship between terrestrial and celestial. The magenta and purple background evokes both storm systems and emotional weather—the intensity of living exposed to elements, the drama of coastal life where weather determines survival. The paint's fluid quality mirrors water, the element these horses must master despite being fundamentally land animals.Interpretation
This work meditates on what wildness means for creatures with domestic ancestry, how feral differs from wild in ways both technical and profound. The Chincoteague ponies descend from human-bred stock but have lived independent of human management for generations, relearning or perhaps remembering how to survive without us. They represent reverse domestication, the possibility that the human-animal contract can be dissolved, that adaptation flows both directions. The piece asks what we mean by belonging—these horses belong to the islands but also to the sea between islands, to the liminal space of marshland that's neither fully land nor water. They exist in thresholds, adapting to multiple elements, refusing singular categorization. The cosmic scale introduced by the circular form (moon/planet/portal) suggests that even small stories participate in larger patterns, that these horses' annual swim mirrors migrations across species and scales, from salmon returning to spawn to whales navigating between feeding and breeding grounds. Everything moves between places, seeking resources, following ancient instructions written in genes and reinforced through culture. The vibrant, almost violent colors suggest emotional intensity—the stakes of these swims are life and death, the currents are real, young horses sometimes don't make it. Yet the horse appears calm, suggesting that what looks dramatic from outside feels natural from within, that this is simply what horses do when they live here, where land is temporary and water a road between grazing grounds. The painting honors both the spectacular and the ordinary aspects of these animals' existence. ```Poetry
$400.00Price