The Golden Mended Moon

About this work

A golden moon rises from a black sea. Fine veins of kintsugi gold run across its face, as if it had once broken and been carefully joined again. Below it, the light spills onto the water and lays a shimmering path of gold towards you. The contrast is simple: deep black, warm gold, and a glow that seems to come from inside the moon itself.

Kintsugi is a Japanese way of repairing broken ceramics. The cracks are joined with urushi lacquer and dusted with powdered gold, so the repair is shown rather than hidden. The practice is often linked with the idea that an object's history, damage included, is part of its beauty. Here that idea moves from a tea bowl to the sky. The moon is not flawless. It is mended, and the mending is exactly what catches the light.

This is a calm, warm piece for darker settings. It sits well above a charcoal or navy sofa, in a bedroom with deep-toned walls, or in a yoga or meditation room where low light matters. Hang it as part of the Ethereal Night in Gold set with The Golden Jellyfish and The Jellyfish Sky for a full night-sky wall. At 300 dpi it prints sharply to roughly 75 cm on the long edge.