'Castaway depicts a figure swimming towards an island shore at the top of the painting. The island is largely reflected in the water, and the reflection of a tall white pine jutting out of the general foliage begins to interact with the ripples made in the water by the swimmer. This is a response to a painting called "the Astronaut" I created in 2019 of a similar subject, only there was no visible shore, and the tree did not interact with the swimmer. I think of it as part 2 of a journey. Most of my paintings are very still and almost posed, but with this I exaggerated the ripples by creating gooey, oozy shapes with a kind of oil slick that spills out from the swimmer. The upside-down tree functions as a kind of dream-like apparition, a non-concrete view of some future.'