This painting began as an idea for a change to the painting of the skull in a black hole. As I was playing with that skull and the colors, I thought about switching the black hole to an iris and using the same color scheme to create the individual muscle fibers of the iris. But, ultimately, I decided not to.

So, I put that idea into this painting. The color selections varied widely until I settled on this rather broad spectrum. It took a long time, and was a ton of fun to create. As the final touch, I decided (as I was finishing) to try to give it a reflection to make it look like a real iris, in stead of some 2D painting of one. But all of the shapes of reflections were boring, so I settled on the Statue of David - just to emphasize the colors as being a result of looking at beautiful art. I also tried to warp the statue according to the lense of the eye, but it kind of just looks like a fat statue.