Aura I Cabochon Painting

Designed with SJL Design Group
Tempo at Truepointe | Columbus, OH | Acrylic paint, glass cabochons | 48” x 72”

About Aura I Cabochon Painting

Aura I was created for a public common area at Tempo at Truepointe in Columbus, Ohio, commissioned by SJL Design Group and brought to me at the recommendation of curator Brenda Kroos of Brenda Kroos Gallery. Brenda and I had worked together on several projects over the years, and this was the first time one came to full completion. The piece is an acrylic painting with applied glass cabochons, 4’ x 6’, and lives in a lounge area where residents and guests encounter it as part of their everyday environment. I love that it exists in a public space, quietly doing what art does best.

Designing Aura I Cabochon Painting

SJL Design Group came to the project with a concept: a color gradient with glass gems applied to the surface. I recommended cabochons instead of gems for their consistency in shape, size, and thickness, which gives the surface a more refined and unified rhythm. They provided color swatches and a digital color smear as reference, and the challenge was that the two didn't fully align with each other. The swatches described a chocolate brown to taupe progression, while the smear suggested something warmer. They also requested rust tones, which couldn't connect organically to a brown-to-taupe palette. Translating a digital color concept into physical materials is inherently difficult: paint, glass, and photography all render color differently, and no amount of sampling fully resolves that until you commit to the actual work. After extensive mockups and palette development, I had a clarifying conversation with Brenda and moved forward. Once I did, everything came together.

Creating Aura I Cabochon Painting

I mixed 28 distinct tones to work with, first painting the colors in bands to track the subtle shifts, then smoothing and feathering the transitions until the surface looked continuous and glowing. The rust tones the client requested became the bridge between the deep brown-red at the base and the cream at the top, and finding a way to make that transition feel organic was one of the more satisfying parts of the process. I used clear silicone to apply the cabochons rather than a solvent-based adhesive, to avoid any chemical reaction with the paint beneath. A plastic placement template with cut circles allowed me to position each cabochon consistently across the full surface before moving to the next section. The cabochons do something unexpected to the paint underneath: they magnify the texture slightly and make the color appear a little lighter, almost as though it's lit from within. It looks more ethereal in person than any photograph can fully capture.