stone flora series
This new body of work has grown from a series of over forty sketchbook drawings that I did while visiting Ireland in 2004 after a nine-year absence.
I found the economic and societal changes substantial and in an attempt to cope with my overwhelming reactions and feelings of loss I found comfort in what
I originally fell in love with Ireland for: the land.
So, the drawings morphed into and on top of the paintings. The paintings lost the layers of colours and their sense of place. They grew into themselves with shades of white and colour became a sub-plot, a shadow. There is no attempt to finish each piece but instead, to allow the process to speak until it comes to quiet.
In my mind, I breathe a scent of change, of growth, of clearing out and letting in; the idea of simultaneous loss and gain. What runs in and around our lives as we see trees come down and skies shatter and the new season that inevitably follows.
Something raw tinged with sweet.
These drawings are, to me, of stones yet they are translatable and abstract in their sensibilities. To some they are eggs, to others more obviously, they are floral in formation. The central form in light brown is of the original recycled wood surface left raw, without gesso. It speaks again of changes, interpretation in a dance of before and after and somewhere in between.
They grow into metaphors for whatever the viewers’ story allows.
Imploding, exploding. Evolving, disseminating. Dissolving, revolving.
While creating in a somewhat meditative state, they seem to draw themselves.
The process and the end seem to be a catharsis and a reflection of what I search for in my own life: simplicity, contrast and clarity. Joy.
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