Title: Sri Lanka

Henri Rousseau painted jungles he never visited, conjuring lush, electric greens from imagination alone. I walked into one. This painting grew out of a journey through the forests of Sri Lanka, where I stood still while a leopard slept the undergrowth and elephants pulled at leaves the size of my torso. When I came home and picked up a brush, Rousseau's vision and my memory became inseparable. The result is both an homage and something he never had: a firsthand witness.