This is the Grand Canyon at first light, as I encountered it on one of my visits there — the moment the sun crests the rim and starts pouring itself down into all that depth. In the foreground, the top layers of rock have already caught the morning full-on, gold and lit from within, while further back the canyon walls are still rising up out of blue shadow, only just beginning to take the light. And far below, thin as a thread, the river — the reason any of this exists at all.

What I wanted to hold onto was that in-between moment: some of the canyon still asleep in shadow, some of it already ablaze, and the whole vast space caught mid-transformation. It feels like watching the sun do its work — reaching, layer by layer, all the way down to the source.

“The River” is painted on gallery wrapped 3/4-inch canvas, the painting continuing around the edges. It nestles in a black floater frame designed and built by me.