Aurora Within

When I painted Aurora, I wanted to show the moment when we stand in front of something so beautiful that it stays inside us long after we look away. The northern lights fall over the mountains in soft green ribbons, and instead of ending in the sky, they continue down into the lashes of the eye. For me, the sky and the person watching it are not two separate things. The light touches us, and we carry it with us.

The lake in the lower part of the painting became the place where everything meets. I painted the water in warm violet, pink and peach tones so it feels calm and almost like skin, and the eye rests inside it as if it was always part of the landscape. If you look closely at the iris, you will see the snowy peak reflected in it. That small detail was important to me, because this is how we really remember places. Not exactly as they are, but as they live in our eyes.

I kept the colors quiet on purpose. The black night, the white snow and the pale green aurora give a feeling of stillness, while the warm tones around the eye bring it back to something human and close. It is a piece about wonder and the silence of the north, and I hope it brings that same quiet feeling into the room where it hangs.