Starlight


River Guardians appear in Robert Macfarlane’s book , ‘Is A River Alive?’
I watch the ripples as I drink my coffee by The River Alun which streams past my workshop, coming very close to the barn at times. I see the inside of the tree through its reflection. Each day I see the leaf buds growing and I listen to the tiny waterfall upstream. Sometimes there’s a firecrest or goldfinches, buzzards. Sometimes a moorhen launches clumsily out of the water when she hears my footsteps. It’s not a dramatic view but it harbours a super abundance of life. There is so much to see! Just being present and still there softens any hard edges I might have and steers me to calmness as I watch it flow. Rivers need our protection. A river is a being in itself which has a right to be, just as we have human rights. This should be law world wide.

When something is positively phototropic it grows towards the light. Trees seeking light to photosynthesise are essential to our planet, and for the oxygen we breathe. My work reflects my concern for protecting our natural systems, trying to understand and avert climate change, protecting the planet, caring and healing. It is a visceral, intuitive response to the process of growing and changing. This work is currently on view at Baker’s@70 Gallery, Fishguard.
50 x 50cm

50 x 60cm, acrylic
This painting literally spells STILL in many different ways. That invites a contemplation on what ‘stillness’ means.
In Yoga there is the movement of the breath, we have a square breath/ Pranayama, coloured squares have different meanings. There is Joppa Joppa where the breath travels from navel to throat in a straight line to name but two. But in all cases it is the invisible movement of the breath which achieves stillness.
The organisation of shapes here gives the composition a kind of rotation, circle, used by many ancient cultures to remind us of the ‘cycle of life’ which is infinite.
The one triangle sets the whole thing in motion and lettering. It is like a dichotomy of motion creating stillness, a kind of somatic awareness of the flat form in rhythm releasing pain and allowing freedom of movement. It is a musical visual score where everything is seen at once and all colours combine to work as a whole.
Oxford Dictionary meaning :dichotomy :a division or contrast between two things, that are, or are represented as being, as opposed or entirely different.

50 x 50cm

100 x 100cm

50 x 60cm

50 x 60cm

50 x 50cm

110 x 110cm

100 x 100cm

Acrylic, 50 x 50 cm
5 x 5 squares at Vernal Equinox. Sea mists, first spring buds, a feeling of the lifting of the dark winter days…

Acrylics on canvas



Oils on Canvas
90 x 100 cm, September 2018