Lichen on Stone Green
Lichen on Stone Green
Details
Year: 2026
Medium: Watercolor on panel
Size: 6 × 12 in
Status: Framed
Price: $400.00 USD*
Note
A lichen is not a single organism. It is a symbiosis, sometimes centuries old, between a fungus and one or more photosynthetic partners, typically green algae, cyanobacteria, or both. The fungus provides structure and protection. The photosynthetic partners provide food. Neither can form a lichen alone. What grows on the stone surface is the architecture of this collaboration, built outward at a rate of millimeters per year. This painting maps that multi-species landscape in close-up. The green washes are the stone itself, its mineral surface rendered through watercolor. The pale areas left as bare panel are a crustose lichen, its body so flat against the rock that it appears to be part of the surface. The darker veining and the yellow-green patches are other lichen species sharing the same stone face, each with its own chemistry and growth rate. A single rock can host a dozen species in overlapping territories, competing and coexisting over decades. The entire composition is a portrait of a community.
Other Paintings in the Series
My Promise
10% of proceeds from every purchase are donated to the World Wildlife Fund to support the protection of endangered species. Thank you for supporting my work and the ecosystems that inspire it.
*If you love this work but the price is out of reach, please feel free to contact me.