Ourfire

Title: OUFIRE
Year: 2023
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 96" × 72" (8' × 6')
Status: Available
Investment: $65,000
 
The Story
I started this painting in spring 2023 for a prestigious group exhibition in Seattle. Sixty percent of the way through, the show was canceled. I stopped painting it.
 
Months later, the show was reinstated. I returned to the canvas—but something had changed.
 
On August 8, 2023, fires tore through Lahaina, and upcountry Maui. We lived there. We drove down Front Street the day before it burned. I surfed Breakwall with my daughter that day.
 
When I looked at the painting again, I saw what I'd created without knowing: a figure walking away from a burning car, smoke billowing into an apocalyptic sunset, water reflecting fire. I had painted the Maui fires before they happened. The sunset is actually a sunrise I captured a year earlier in Hana, I've used it in multiple paintings as bridge to connect this historic moment throughout my artwork. 
 
I don't believe in premonitions. But I can't explain this.
 
Finishing the piece became an act of processing grief, survivor's guilt, and the weight of unintentional prophecy. Every brushstroke carried the memory of our neighbors, the streets we walked, the life we left behind.
 
The Work
 
OUFIRE is museum-scale—8 feet wide, 6 feet tall. It demands space and commands presence. The composition is deliberately cinematic: a lone figure, a burning vehicle, an impossible sky, water that mirrors the destruction above, but also speaks to resurrection— the story of the Phoenix.
 
The painting anchored a major Seattle exhibition in fall 2023 and has traveled from Maui to Seattle to Richmond, Indiana, where it will be the centerpiece of my retrospective at the Richmond Art Museum (June 2026).
 
It's stretched on premium Artel aluminum bars—archival-grade, built to last generations. This piece is ready for institutional or serious private collection.
 
Acquisition
Investment: $65,000
Payment plans available: 6-12 months, zero interest
Shipping: Professional art logistics, fully insured (included)
Certificate of authenticity: Included
 
This is a singular work. The circumstances that created it cannot be replicated. If you've been waiting for a piece that carries weight—emotionally, historically, visually—this is it.
 
Inquiries: jke@justinkaneelder.com