TROPICAL HEIGHTS AND DEPTHS

Painted for my friend, Rytas Vilgalys, following a meeting in Puerto Rico where, on successive days, we explored first a coral reef and then a rainforest, heralded by a blast blown through a conch shell by our navigator. The ascending, spiralling cavities of the conch shell refer to the venation pattern in the yam leaves, the climbing ferns and the termite trails in the forest. Their boundaries contain an underwater scene in which corals and sea fans relate to the architecture of trees, tree ferns and mosses in the forest, and fish reflect the descent of raindrops.