After the Muffling Fog — A Painting About Emerging

There are times in my life when I feel like I’m living inside a fog—heavy, quiet, and thick enough to smother thought. That fog is depression. It creeps in slowly, settles deep, and makes everything feel far away: joy, light, connection, even the will to keep moving.

My latest painting, After the Muffling Fog, was born from that place—but it doesn’t live there. It lives in the moment after. The moment when the fog lifts just enough to take one small, careful step forward.

After the Muffling Fog, 2024, Acrylic Paint

The painting shows a single horse emerging from a black background, approaching a lone dove perched on a branch of driftwood. The horse’s muzzle almost touches the dove’s head—a moment filled with tension, curiosity, and hope. The horse is me.

For a long time, I’ve thought of depression as something that muffles my senses, like I'm wrapped in a weighted blanket I didn’t choose. It dulls my light, steals my voice, and isolates me from the world. In After the Muffling Fog, I wanted to capture that first quiet breath after that weight starts to lift—that moment when your spirit stirs, cautious and raw but ready to try again.

The dove is peace. Not the loud, triumphant kind, but the fragile kind—the kind you don’t want to scare away. In the painting, the dove radiates light into the dark atmosphere around it. I used metallic golds to emphasize that glow—light spreading, slowly but surely. The background remains mostly black to show the lingering darkness, but the light is real and reaching.

This is a large piece—30 x 40 inches—and I created it using acrylic paint. I wanted the surface to hold both texture and light, and acrylic allowed me to layer the darks and metallics in a way that made the glow feel almost alive. Every brushstroke was part of a conversation with myself—sometimes painful, sometimes peaceful.

After the Muffling Fog isn’t about being healed or having all the answers. It’s about that first moment of connection, when you realize you’re still here, and maybe—just maybe—there’s something beautiful waiting if you reach for it.

Thanks for taking a moment to meet this piece. I hope it speaks to something in you.