Undertow

From the air, the beach reveals itself as an entirely different world—abstract, painterly, and made of forces rather than places. I was flying low over the coastline when I looked directly down and found this: a single wave mid-arrival, its white foam lace spread across turquoise water in patterns that looked designed. The sandy shore above it, unmarked and still. The water below, vivid and clear. Between them, the white line of the surf—the precise moment of meeting.

Undertow is the underside of every wave you've ever watched arrive. The moment just before, and just after, when the energy of the ocean is expressed not in drama but in geometry. The shapes the foam makes as it expands across the surface, the way the color shifts from sand-tan to aqua to deep blue—these are not things you see standing on the beach. You need altitude and stillness to see them at all.

I am drawn to the kind of beauty that requires a change of perspective—the view that exists but that most people never think to seek. Undertow is that image. From a distance, it reads as near-abstract: a study in blue and white and sand. Up close, the detail in the foam, the texture of the water's surface, and the gradation of color reward the extended look. It is an image that gives more the longer you stay with it—and that, to me, is what makes a piece worth putting on a wall.