People ask whether I plan my paintings, and the truthful answer is that the painting usually arrives before I do. Sometimes it comes in a dream so complete I wake up already reaching for a pencil. Sometimes it comes during meditation (a crown, an owl, a white hare ringed by watching eyes) and my job is simply to keep up with it before it fades.
I’ve lived in Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa and Canada, and every one of those landscapes still turns up in the work uninvited. The elephants and buffalo are Africa’s. The long blue silences are Canada’s. The gold, though, is entirely spirit’s, and it insists on itself more often than I’d like to admit; gold leaf has opinions.
Working in mixed media suits the way the visions behave. A dream is never just one texture, so the canvas shouldn’t be either: oil against spray, gold against matte black, a fine-brush animal eye staring out of a storm of splatter. When a piece is finished I often understand, weeks later, what it was actually about. The lesson arrives after the image: beauty first, meaning when you’re ready for it.
If one of the paintings speaks to you, ask me about it when you visit. Every one of them has a story, and I’ll happily talk your ear off with the kettle on.
