Everything means something to Phoenix S. Brown . The Milwaukee-based artist infuses depictions of nature in her paintings and drawings with a hint of mystique – blue flames, pearl-like moons, lizards with split tails. “[I like] getting things away from what we deem as natural and making them more fantastical,” she says.

The name of this painting, Foretelling , suggests an omen within the otherworldly landscape, but the work’s fate wasn’t preordained. Brown composed it, like many of her pieces, through trial and error. As a result, different symbols emerge from the dark, but with one theme: purification.

She started by stretching a large canvas and sketching. “The composition changed multiple times,” she says. “I have a tendency to cover up the work that I make because I feel

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