There’s a plant I keep noticing, even when I’m not trying to.

Bougainvillea.

I even have to hesitate to remember how to spell it!

It shows up in the middle of everything else—the muted browns, the dry textures, the steady, familiar tones of desert landscaping—and suddenly there’s this color that doesn’t quite belong there. Sometimes it’s a vivid magenta that feels almost electric. Other times it softens into something quieter, a pale pink that feels like it’s fading as much as blooming.

I never quite know which version I’m going to get.

That unpredictability is part of what keeps pulling me back to it.

At first, I thought this piece was going to be about that color. About contrast. About how something so bright can exist so comfortably in a place that feels so restrained.

But somewhere along the way, that stopped being the most interesting part.

Instead, I found myself paying attention to the movement.

The way the branches curve and wander.
The way the leaves and blooms feel almost secondary to the path they follow.
The way your eye traces the line before it even settles on what’s growing from it.

That’s where this piece really began to take shape.

In Drawn in Light, I started simplifying things.

Instead of building up layers of color and texture, I focused on the line itself—letting it carry the weight of the piece. The glow came naturally from that decision. Not as something added on top, but as something inherent to the movement.

Like the line was holding the light rather than reflecting it.

That shift changed everything.

It became less about representing a plant, and more about following a gesture. A path. Something continuous and a little unpredictable, just like the bougainvillea itself.

If you look closely, the blooms are still there. The leaves are still there. But they’re quieter. They’re part of the rhythm instead of the focal point.

What stands out is the flow.

There’s something I’ve always loved about how bougainvillea behaves in the desert.

It doesn’t blend in, but it doesn’t fight the environment either. It just exists within it, holding its color, shifting when it needs to, catching the light differently depending on the moment.

That feeling carried into this piece.

Not bold for the sake of being bold.
Not minimal for the sake of being minimal.

Just… present.

This piece feels like a transition for me.

In the earlier neon works, the light moved across forms, wrapping around cacti, reflecting between shapes, building energy across the scene.

Here, the light becomes the form.

It’s a quieter kind of presence, but in some ways, it feels more direct. More intentional.

Less about the landscape.
More about the gesture inside it.

If you’re curious how that line moves across the full piece, you can explore it here.

If you enjoyed this work, you might also enjoy these:

Neon Nightscape
Another exploration of light living inside the subject.

Agave Aurora
Another luminous piece, but more atmospheric than this one.

Cacti Constellations
A brighter, more electric version of this world, where the light starts to take over.