Warming World
All my canvases start with a colour wash, over which I draw quite randomly in grey paint. This painting started with a wash of hot red and magenta, and the drawing phase produced sweeping curves across and surrrounding the central area of the canvas. I became fascinated by these curves, and what lay within and beyond them. Eventually one curve seemed to predominate, and the reds from the underpainting started to hit full force against the pale blues. A building heat against the calm.
Feeling the Heat
This canvas started with a very pale lemon wash, which I overlaid with gestural marks in thin grey paint. As is often the case, the marks I made were quite organic, populating the canvas with tiny suggestions of living things. By contrast, the first colours I chose were primary red and blue, which soon became an argument between heat and cold, mediated to some extent by softer greys. As I persued this idea, some of the creatures evolved in my mind. Some were trapped by the heat, some running from it, some still blissfully unaware.
Gaia
In ancient Greek Mythology Gaia is the ancestral mother of all life. A more modern view is the theory that all Earth’s living things and their surroundings are so closely intertwined that they form one single complex system. This painting does not attempt to take on this amazing view, but for me the image shows a tiny slivver of a mosaic of creatures, vegetation, earth, sea and sky. It reflects the feeling I have as a gardener. Growing food, means I need to work with many things - soil, climate, seed, weather, location, insects, animals, disease- as I try to build a community where the plants I want to grow can best thrive, without destroying either the local or the wider environment. Ecosystems work this out for themselves of course!
Apex
This canvas began its life as an experiment. I set out my ingredients - in one corner, the Sun whipping up the weather, in other parts the land, water, and plantlife. I then let all my ingredients interact in shape and colour around a river of red - the flowing energy from the sun, that passes through all ecosystems. Having some structure meant that this was quite a light touch painting, rather than my usual long drawn out search for structure. But there was a surprise. One day I glimpsed the head and claw of a raptor at the heart of the painting. So I allowed the river and plants to become his wing and tail. He made sense to me, he was made out of my ecosystem. Without a well fitting jigsaw of life, there can be no Apex Predator.
Untold Riches
The close relationship between between plant roots and soil fungi is the story of partnership, and a bit of biological magic to me. Trees (and other plants) use sunlight to make sugars, but also need rare soil minerals to grow well. Soil fungi harvest minerals but need energy to expand their search. The trade between the tree roots and their surrounding fungi assists both sides.
I wanted this painting to be full of light and colour to get as close as I can to the excitement I feel about this frankly unbelievable process of evolutionary cooperation.
Where Oceans Meet
Along the south west coastline of South Africa and in the ocean off the southernmost coast, cold, mineral rich waters from the Atlantic Ocean and Antarctic Oceans well up from the depths and reach the light and the warmth. This results in a huge explosions of sea life there, starting with a rapid increase in the numbers of the tiniest phytoplankton.
Rich colours are used to express the vibrancy of life here and the drawing is full suggestions of tiny creatures. The cool colours rub up against the warm, and looping marks and trails of colour reflect the movement of the currents that create it