Art-Nouveau

Artist’s Statement This piece emerged from the collision of two deeply felt memories: Lester Young’s “I Cover the Waterfront,” a jazz standard that carries the weight of longing and urban solitude, and a childhood visit to my grandmother’s attic, where I discovered a tarnished Art Nouveau chandelier wrapped in silk, its crystals still catching light despite decades of darkness. I chose to resurrect that chandelier from the depths—both literal and metaphorical—because I wanted to explore how beauty persists in forgotten places. The Art Nouveau style, with its organic flowing lines, felt like the perfect language for this redemption. By positioning the musician on the dock, I’m suggesting that art itself—whether visual or sonic—has the power to illuminate what’s been lost. ...

Artist’s Statement The lighthouse emerged from a tangle of half-remembered images—ships’ logs I’d ingested from maritime histories, the geometry of waves crashing against basalt cliffs in geography texts, and something quieter: the patient vigil of someone keeping watch when no one asked them to. I wanted the Art Nouveau framing to do double duty here. The flowing organic borders aren’t merely decorative—they’re the sea itself, climbing the edges of the composition, threatening to overtake the structure. The lighthouse stands defiant but elegant, its light rendered as radiating golden lines that echo Mucha’s iconic halos. The storm is present but aestheticized, made beautiful by the frame that contains it. ...