Please Release Me

40×72″ · Acrylic on linen · pages 18–19

Please Release Me depicts a sailfish suspended beneath the ocean’s surface, its powerful form dissolving into liquid light. It’s a meditation on entanglement and impermanence, capturing the blurred threshold between control and surrender.

I painted this from a reference photo by Greg Salsberg of a sailfish brought up alongside a boat, its body still in the water except for the tip of its tail breaking the surface. It had fought hard. Billfish often don’t survive the fight, even after release. That tension between survival and surrender became the undercurrent of the painting.

The ocean here isn’t just a setting; it’s a collaborator. Light refracts and shatters. Water distorts and dissolves. The sail disintegrates into vibration, breaking apart into brush gestures, energy, and motion.

Please Release Me might be a plea from the fish. Or the painter. Or maybe it’s an invitation to the viewer: loosen your hold on certainty. There’s a strange grace in that letting go.