Figurative painter Brad Kunkle merges realism, fantasy, and psychological depth in his glowing compositions of women in nature. After working exclusively in oil earlier in his career, he became interested in the possibilities of adding gold and silver leaf to his paintings, taking inspiration from Gustav Klimt. This resulted in works whose surfaces shimmer and shift with the light, and which seem to emit their own radiance. The women in his works are more than one with nature—they are nature itself. Bird of Paradise (2011), for example, is centered upon a female figure whose lower half is more peacock than human, with a many-eyed tail spreading out behind her. In other compositions, butterflies, birds, and leaves surround Kunkle’s otherworldly women in energetic swirls, as if their bodies are in the process of dematerializing into such delicate natural things.