'EVERYTHING YOU KNOW' - Oil on Canvas

The artwork titled 'Everything You Know' by Michael Prettyman is a dramatic and emotive landscape painting that captures the destructive beauty of a wildfire. The canvas is dominated by a vivid contrast between the tranquil, misty atmosphere of the distant mountains and the intense, fiery blaze consuming the foreground.

In the upper portion of the painting, the mountains are depicted with soft, muted tones of blues and greens, creating a serene and majestic backdrop. The mist envelops the peaks, adding a layer of depth and mystery to the landscape, with subtle gradations suggesting the play of light and shadow through the haze.

The tranquility of the scene is disrupted by the raging fire in the lower portion. The artist has skillfully rendered the flames with dynamic brushwork, using a palette of bright reds, oranges, and yellows that leap out against the cooler colors of the background. The fire's glow is reflected on the smoky plumes rising into the sky, merging with the mist in a display of nature's power.

Below the flames, the field is depicted with somber tones, interspersed with small, delicate flowers that provide a poignant contrast to the destructive force of the fire. The detail in the grasses and flowers is meticulous, offering a textural counterpoint to the smoothness of the sky and the chaotic energy of the fire.

This piece is rich in symbolism and emotion, suggesting themes of destruction, renewal, and the impermanence of knowledge and nature. It is a visually arresting work that conveys the sublime, the beauty, and terror of natural phenomena, and the vulnerability of the known world in the face of nature's unpredictable force.