Acrylic and oil on deep-sided canvas, 2022, 61 x 61 x 5 cm
Definitely a spring painting. Daffodils! crocuses! And many layers of process until I was happy with it.
2022
RUSTED
Acrylic, gold mica flakes, paper, on canvas, 2022, 61 x 61 cm.
From walking at Edenmouth, on Kinshaldy beach, in and out the shallows at low tide.
My eyes rusted and lost/containing seawater/and my hair full of saltmarsh. /I ask for its touch, brimming/its voices and reasons
OCEAN AT THE RIVER’S MOUTH
Acrylic, linen, charcoal, oil pastel, on linen, 60 x 50 cm.
after overnight storms, nature taking over … in my studio still listening to Junun … pearls and coral in your hair –
RIVER DEEP – DE PROFUNDIS
Acrylic, paper, charcoal, gouache, oil pastel, water soluble crayon, on canvas, 60 x 76 cm. 2022.
the tidal river mouth of the Eden, its sandbanks, its divided streams, sea eagles, seals, old fishing posts – all that and the cathedral sky in St Andrews Bay.
RIVER-MOUTH BEACH
Acrylic, charcoal, water soluble crayon, linen on canvas, 2022, 61 x 61 cm
part of a series about Kinshaldy beach and the Eden estuary.
I had planned to paint over all of the first layer with its strong lines and paint runs. but stopped as I became aware that the charcoal lines done from my sketchbook notes were actually doing really interesting things with the under layers. As always, the fact that this has a piece of raw linen wrapped edge to edge across it, makes something special happen.
LETS GO TO THAT LAND
Acrylic, paper, charcoal, linen on canvas, 2022, 61 x 61 cm.
I discovered the poems of Meera Bai, a 16th century hindu mystic and saint (through the Junun album, and film of the same name, by Paul Thomas Anderson, made in Jodhpur Fort in Rajasthan in 2015, by Shye Ben Tzur and Jonny Greenwood with Qawwali and other traditional musicians and singers).
Pilgrim trails, ritual walks;
voyages in, an interior path;
imagined geographies, memory maps.
A place within a landscape that corresponds to a place within the heart.
CHALA VAHI DES (LET’S GO TO THAT LAND)
Poetry by Meera Bai
Translated by Shlomzion Kenan & Sajida Ben Tzur
Let’s go to that land, where my beloved shall be found,
If you ask ‒ I shall dye my saree in the colors of flowers.
If you ask ‒ I shall wear saffron attire.
If you ask ‒ I shall adorn my hair with pearls,
If you ask ‒ I shall leave it undone. Meera’s Lord is Krishna,
Hear me, oh King of Kings.
MAKING A PATH TO THE BELOVED
Acrylic, paper, linen, oil pastel, charcoal, soluble graphite on two canvases, diptych. 2022. 80 x 120 cm.
“I’ve torn my scarf into shreds; I’m all wrapped up in a blanket.
I took off my finery of pearls and coral, and strung a garland of wildwood flowers.
With my tears, I watered the creeper of love that I planted;
Now the creeper has grown spread all over, and borne the fruit of bliss.” (Meera Bai)
This is a painting that was a puzzle for months, until I stuck the large pieces of linen onto it, which freed me up to fit it into this series, give it a subject and a reason to be finished.
IN THE HILLS
Acrylic, paper, charcoal on linen, 2022, 61 x 61 cm.
This painting came after a birthday walk in the Trossachs, amongst birch woods and hilly sitka plantations, above the river Garbh Uisge, meaning Rough Water. Walking through the birches I got my pocket sketch book out and drew madly which made me feel a bit dizzy. Here there is a feeling of looming hills and promontories, and birch trunks and the river full of rocks.
In the Hills refers to the wish of the painter to be up in the wild places, in the heather and the trees, walking and finding themselves.
BRIMMING
Acrylic, charcoal, graphite, pencil, paper on canvas, diptych, 80 x 120 cm, 2022
this has brim-over and over view written on it. From a time when I was writing a poem about the river Tas in my childhood, and the big watermill in the village (Colman’s mustard headquarters in the 19th Century)
we children gone
the river below
underneath the leat are the drowned
the overflow down drowned
on the other side minnows and through
being metal railings
kingfishers and rushing churned up down
dark river deep
run
walk the concrete
past the two shooting out of floors
high above the tail race
on the deep stained dead
