Back to New Stories
Enlightened No (2025)
Mixed Media: Canvas, Wood, Oil, LED Light, 48” x 26”
The Enlightened No reflects the moment when refusal becomes wisdom — when “no” is spoken not from resistance but from clarity and alignment. The work honors the quiet, radical act of placing one’s own needs and vision first, and of setting boundaries that create space for what truly matters.
The composition is built from three thin layers of wood that appear to float, paired with stretched canvas sides painted in oil to create a seamless dialogue between materials. LED lights illuminate the work from within, intentionally casting more brightness on the top half — as if storm clouds are parting and light is breaking through. The lower section holds darker, storm-like clouds, while the upper transitions to luminous whites, mirroring the moment of inner illumination that arrives with an aligned “no.”
This was the first work in which the artist incorporated light, transforming negative space into a living threshold. The glow becomes both metaphor and experience — a reminder that refusal can open rather than close, becoming a passage toward one’s truest life.
Inspired by Gay Hendricks’ The Big Leap and his concept of the “enlightened no,” the piece invites viewers to consider the cost of saying yes when they mean no — and the liberation that follows when they choose otherwise.
