Night, For Now began with a drawing of two figures and a campfire. As the series evolved and their story came together, the firelight remained a consistent character. Fire provides warmth and offers orientation in the dark. It is where meals are made and where people come together. For the figures in this series, the fires are the constant that keeps danger at bay.

But fire is never really safe. As a kid living in the Bay Area, I once set fire to objects in the backyard, doused with gasoline we used for the lawn mower. Somehow, I managed to put the fire out before damage occurred, but that memory stays with me. I think that experience lives somewhere inside these paintings.

Fire is beautiful, but that beauty has real potential for destruction. That tension forms the psychological center of the work. Gaston Bachelard wrote that fire is the first object of human reverie, the element that invites contemplation while demanding vigilance. You cannot look away from it, nor can you fully trust it.

Visually, firelight offered permission. A single dramatic source of light collapses the darkness around it, expanding and drawing every color toward its center. The flames in this series move the way paint moves: fluid, alive, never exactly where you expect it.

Hugo Regan,
March 2026