This winter garden triptych presents three horses, rendered in white, pink, and green, paired with the winter blossoms of hellebore in matching bloom. The horse stands as a symbol of strength, freedom, and power, yet beside it grows a delicate flower that harbors a poison capable of bringing even such force to its knees. Hellebore is beautiful, toxic, and enduring: a plant that survives adversity and flowers in the coldest depths of winter. Together, horse and hellebore hold a quiet tension, between power and vulnerability, dominance and humility…reminding us that true strength is never absolute, and that resilience often emerges from the harshest conditions.
The horse turns sideways in the opposite direction, its brown coat softly tinted with pink, as if absorbing the world that surrounds it. A bridle of pink hellebore drapes loosely around its neck: ornamental, delicate, and quietly menacing. Embedded within the surface are fragments of botanical text, precise and clinical, describing the lethal properties of this winter-blooming flower…a subtext that warns those who choose to see and understand.
Meaning
This painting reflects how environment shapes identity. The horse’s altered coloring suggests adaptation, influence, and the slow imprint of what we live beside. The pink hellebore; beautiful, resilient, and toxic, embodies comforts and beliefs that appear gentle yet carry unseen danger. By pairing softness with harm, the work questions how often we mistake familiarity for safety. It asks the viewer to consider not only what surrounds us, but how deeply it enters us, and even becomes us…and at what cost.
