Work in Progress
Striped Cactus, Spectrum Thinking, and Early AR Experiments
November 9, 2025
WORK IN PROGRESS
Black and White Cactus
10’ x 7’, Oil on Canvas
When I started painting Black and White Cactus, I was challenged with superimposing black and white stripes onto the surface of a South Texas cactus. At first glance, it seem straightforward—black and white, light and dark—but the longer I worked, the more I noticed how these so-called opposites shift and blur. A white stripe in shadow can appear darker than a black one in light. Everything depends on the form of the cactus, its texture, and how the light touches it. Instead of existing as clearly defined opposites, the strips reflect a spectrum and relational understanding.
That small realization connects to a larger, ongoing understanding that in nature, nothing stands alone. What we often think of as separate—bird, ocean, land, plant—are all connected, fluid, and in constant exchange. Energy moves between them without clear boundaries. This sense of interconnection shows up everywhere: in science, in spiritual traditions, in art and poetry across cultures.
And yet, we tend to see the world in categories—dividing, naming, ranking—as if separation were real. It’s a habit that distances us from each other and from the living world. My paintings often push against that habit, searching for ways to hold complexity rather than flatten it.
In Black and White Cactus, the tension between abstraction and realism becomes part of that search. Up close, the surface breaks apart into marks and fragments that almost lose meaning. But step back, and they come together into something recognizable. That shift—between detail and whole, between contrast and unity—feels to me like how understanding itself works.
This artwork is also part of a recent collaboration in which I explore these creative ideas through experiments in Augmented Reality, collaborating with my partner, Iván Diz. Using Unity, we place short videos generated with VEO 3.1 inside the frame of a painting, viewable through a phone or tablet. These digital layers don’t replace the physical work; they expand it—adding quiet movements that speak to time, cycles, and the living presence of plants. Our conversations about perception, connection, and nature continue to guide how the physical and digital meet in this evolving practice.
In many ways, this project feels like both a departure and a continuation. The playful take on the cactus and the added digital layers push me into new territory, experimenting with tools and ways of seeing I haven’t used before. But the core of it—the curiosity about connection, perception, and the living world—remains the same. Whether through paint, pixels, or light, I’m still exploring the same questions: how everything relates, how boundaries shift, and how art can help us notice the subtle ways we belong to a larger whole.
