The Illuminate Series developed from my study of the intricate language of pattern in Christian, Islamic and Hebrew illuminated texts. Evolving from the ban on graven images in the three Abrahamic faiths, patterns become symbols, telling stories in abstract form. Isolating these shapes from their original context I re-assemble, magnify, and juxtapose them with vignettes landscapes, referring to places imagined or appropriated from pastoral painted scenes. Pattern, color field, landscape, initiate a dialogue across cultural forms, referencing text, history, place. The paintings are handmade egg tempera, 22k gold leaf on dry gesso panel.