Sometimes the solution to a problem isn’t to hide it, but to change the conversation; and I was approached by the new owner of this historic farmhouse property to do just that. Gorgeous renovations had been done to restore and modernise the house built in 1860, but visitors were distracted by a weird cutout on the farm’s barn door. Something had to be done.

I found myself inspired by Romanticism and Sublime Art; specifically Friedrich’s ‘Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ (1818). Painters, disillusioned from modernism, desired to capture the awe and all-encompassing power of nature. With the property’s namesake (1 Peter 2:4-5) in mind, I wanted the painting to feel somewhat precious; thus a child in a wheat field, with ethereal swirls, and the sun whispering an eternal connection to God.