oil on linen, 132 x 121 cm

I think Molly Bullick might have liked this one, it has a lot of writing on it, never as beautiful as her non-but-almost calligraphic paintings.

I had been revising this poem, so it has became an apt memorial . For a multi-skilled artist who was never content with one way of doing things, architect, printmaker, jeweller, dyer, stitcher, painter.

Tìr nan Óg (for Molly)
The young in one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium, 1927

we raise our antlered heads
speak our minds
not against
not yet baptised, going
deep under –
there our
deer-son, doe-daughter
headdresses lie
in the clear lake in spring
edged with water-crowfoot
singing swans
volume depths down with bubbles
caught

we were always living near water
here our footsteps follow
we inventing old freedoms lost

we choose, we are hostage
checked in
advisable declared
all heroes
naked in the west
blowing in
always beneath the clouds beyond
skirted with rain

loose pigment, sand and shell in dammar glaze medium over acrylic layers on canvas, 100 x 120 cm

part of a new body of work I am making about Tentsmuir and Kinshaldy beach where I walk my dog once or twice a week, based on a poem I wrote almost 2 years ago (published in Tears in the Fence Literary journal Spring 2023).
I take a pocket-sized sketchbook with me on walks to make quick drawings in, and from these and from notes taken with my iphone camera, a new set of paintings both small and very large is coming into existence. I am experimenting with mixing sand and shell fragments from the beach into the paint, or sprinkling it over the wet paint, to bring the materiality of place into the paintings. I want to explore the idea of belonging and spiritual release through the experience of nature in that mix of paint and the material of the land in my work.

somewhere in the future a nameless summons

the undercurrent dissolves
withering saltmarsh wildflowers
quickly weaving water dances forwards
towards whatever end

detail, lower edge

detail, centre.