$870

The images that started this painting weren't taken in the mountains.

They were taken at the zoo.

I kept coming back to photographs of gorillas in quiet, enclosed spaces. Not dramatic moments, just ordinary ones. Sitting, resting, existing inside boundaries that felt both visible and invisible.

Around the same time, I was hiking in American Basin in Colorado's San Juan Mountains, surrounded by wildflowers pushing through rock and elevation. It felt like the opposite condition: open, untamed, constantly renewing itself.

Somewhere between those two places, a question took hold.

I've always been fascinated by evolution, by how species end up where they do and why certain animals belong to certain landscapes. Hiking through the San Juans, I started wondering: North America has no native primates. But if it did... where would they be?

It seemed to me they'd retreat to the most remote, rugged country available. Places where people rarely linger. High basins, waterfalls, and alpine meadows. Landscapes that still feel a little beyond our reach.

That idea became the foundation for the painting.

As the composition evolved, I realized it wasn't about where the gorillas stood, but how your eye moved through the scene. A visual triangle between the two figures and the distant waterfall keeps the painting in motion, letting the landscape feel lived in rather than arranged. The vivid blues and greens grew from that same instinct. I wanted the painting to feel like early spring, full of energy, renewal, and possibility.

You may also notice something unique about this piece. The painted caption across the top is a nod to vintage travel postcards, turning the scene into a souvenir from an alternate Colorado where mountain gorillas are simply another part of the landscape. Instead of asking you to imagine the impossible, it quietly presents it as fact.

The title comes from "(Nothing But) Flowers," a song that imagines a return to nature while acknowledging the tension that comes with it.

At first glance, the painting asks a simple question:

Are there gorillas in Colorado?

Of course not.

But the more interesting question is why there aren't, and more broadly, why every species belongs where it does. I don't think the painting answers that question. It simply opens the door.

Maybe there's another question beneath it:

In a world that feels increasingly structured and controlled, is there still room for wildness? And if there is, what would it take to keep it?