A Prayer Beneath the Gold

By Ekaterina Sky

For much of my life as an artist, my work has centered on animals, particularly endangered species and the fragile ecosystems they depend on. I was drawn to them not only for their beauty, but for what they reveal about the state of the world. Through painting animals on the brink of disappearance, I began to understand them as living indicators of imbalance, loss, and human impact. They became messengers, silent witnesses to environmental collapse, and reminders of what is at stake.

Over time, I realized that painting animals was also a way of speaking about vulnerability more broadly. As a deeply sensitive person, I absorb all that is happening in the world. In recent years, the accumulation of global crises, wars, violence, displacement, ecological breakdown, and constant uncertainty became impossible to ignore. I felt that weight not only emotionally, but physically. While my work had long addressed environmental themes, I began to sense its limitations. Speaking only about the natural world, without addressing the human behaviors and systems behind its destruction, no longer felt sufficient.

We, as humans, are a great part of the equation.

Our behaviors, choices, and systems directly affect animals, ecosystems, and one another. Leaving humanity out of the narrative felt like telling only half the story. I began asking myself: What can I do as an artist? What kind of message can help people feel connected rather than overwhelmed?

One night, unable to sleep, I woke with a clear and unexpected answer, a prayer. I wrote it in one continuous flow. It wasn’t connected to any particular religion, yet it carried the essence of many. I shared the prayer with leaders and teachers from different traditions, mosques, synagogues, churches, Buddhist temples, as well as a Hindu monk and my Kabbalistic teacher, to ensure that it honored diverse spiritual paths while transcending them. At its core, the prayer is a reminder: we are stewards of this planet, and caring for it is a collective responsibility.

Meditation is central to my practice. It is how I connect beyond words, how images and ideas arrive before they take form. Through meditation, the Prayer for the Earth series came to me not only as text, but as patterns, paintings, and structures meant to hold the prayer beneath layers of light and gold.

My process begins digitally. I sketch on my iPad using Procreate, a tool that has profoundly changed my workflow by allowing ideas to remain fluid and accessible wherever I am. From there, I transfer the patterns onto archival Arches watercolor paper. I map out each composition with tape, then build layers of watercolor to create soft, luminous fields of color. Light is essential to this work. Across cultures and religions, light represents the sacred. Subtle shifts in tone create a gentle optical vibration, inviting the viewer to slow down and stay with the painting rather than consume it quickly.

Once the painted structure is complete, I transcribe the prayer by hand. This part of the process requires calm, focus, and care. I want the energy I am holding, hope, reverence, and strength, to be embedded in the work itself. The prayer is then sealed with gold leaf, applied with the help of my longtime assistant, Yvette Peña, whose support over the past four years has been integral. For me, gold is not decorative. In my work, it protects what lies beneath while allowing it to radiate outward.

Over time, the work naturally expanded beyond the studio and into community-based practice. I began inviting people directly into the process. In Altadena, I created a mural where community members, including those affected by recent fires, were invited to write their intentions and prayers for the planet and their city. Their words became part of the artwork itself, capturing lived experience and local voices. The process helped transform grief into hope and created a shared space for healing. The project was supported by nonprofit organizations including Collidescope Foundation, LA Climate Week, Plant Based Treaty, among others.

I have hosted gatherings where the same universal prayer was transcribed collectively in different languages, first in Russian and Ukrainian, and later in Hebrew and Arabic. People came together across cultural and political divides to pray, share stories, cry, laugh, and exchange phone numbers. What stayed with me was the reminder that connection is still possible, even in fractured times.

Some of the works remain unframed, allowing the paper to exist vulnerably and directly on the wall. Each piece contains an embedded chip that viewers can scan to listen to the prayer hidden beneath the gold. Every time the prayer is heard, the work is reactivated, continuing to bless the space it inhabits.

Recently, I have expanded the project through limited edition prints created using a specialized process that preserves the prayer beneath gold. Each print funds the planting of a tree, extending the gesture of stewardship beyond the gallery and into the living world.

This work does not offer solutions. Instead, it offers a pause, a space to reflect, feel, and remember our shared responsibility. By including humanity within the ecological story, I hope the work invites people to see themselves not as distant observers, but as active participants in shaping what comes next.

For me, art is not an endpoint.

It is a beginning.