Original artwork description:

This Cactus composition is part of an extended series of over 45 cactus paintings. I love to work with great vivid colors and gradients because of their incredible effects and contrasts.

The cactus world inspires me - i find these plants to be surreal - descended from another dimension. These plants seem so alien to me with their weird shapes and spikes.

The place they live in also is another world: the desert - a place of drought and lack of life.

The theme of the cactus is not random and has more to do with the intrinsic symbolic power of the plants: a rugged plant family full of spikes that is adapted to survive the harshest of climates. Thus, these plants are built like fortresses of the desert - spikes and thick skin protect them against the arid climate and against predators.

These fortresses harbor precious water - the essence of life and, in so doing, they become a real Oasis for the thirsty traveler or the lost soul limping through the desert.

An oasis of physical and symbolic presence, for water is knowledge and knowing is power. This piece is part of a series of plant-paintings based on the cacti family and is based on photographs that I have taken personally while on residence in Tenerife, Spain. My fascination with the Oasis was spurred by the aridity of the volcanic landscape in the Canary Islands.

Noting that this landscape has a mostly uniform color-aspect, I have made it my endeavor to bring color and modify it through re-coloring of the different cactus plants that I depicted. A range of Psychedelic-Cacti has thus been brought into existence and depicts, to some extent, the hallucination that one might see when extreme dehydration (or extreme hopelessness) kicks-in.

On a more practical level, I have decided to use Oil colors because I am interested in maintaining the vibration of the color and also an aspect of "thickness" and saturation that only this technique provides.

The theme of the cactus is not random and has more to do with the intrinsic symbolic power of the plants: a rugged plant family full of spikes that is adapted to survive the harshest of climates. Thus, these plants are built like fortresses of the desert - spikes and thick skin protect them against the arid climate and against predators.

These fortresses harbor precious water - the essence of life and, in so doing, they become a real Oasis for the thirsty traveler or the lost soul limping through the desert.

An oasis of physical and symbolic presence, for water is knowledge and knowing is power. This piece is part of a series of plant-paintings based on the cacti family and is based on photographs that I have taken personally while on residence in Tenerife, Spain. My fascination with the Oasis was spurred by the aridity of the volcanic landscape in the Canary Islands.

Noting that this landscape has a mostly uniform color-aspect, I have made it my endeavor to bring color and modify it through re-coloring of the different cactus plants that I depicted. A range of Psychedelic-Cacti has thus been brought into existence and depicts, to some extent, the hallucination that one might see when extreme dehydration (or extreme hopelessness) kicks-in.

On a more practical level, I have decided to use Oil colors because I am interested in maintaining the vibration of the color and also an aspect of "thickness" and saturation that only this technique provides.


This Cactus composition is part of an extended series of over 45 cactus paintings. I love to work with great vivid colors and gradients because of their incredible effects and contrasts.

The cactus world inspires me - i find these plants to be surreal - descended from another dimension. These plants seem so alien to me with their weird shapes and spikes.

The place they live in also is another world: the desert - a place of drought and lack of life.

Materials used:

oil colors and thinners

Tags: