From time to time a painting emerges that is special to the artist. Weeping Willow Pool is one such painting for me. I have no idea whether it will resonate with anyone else, but it needed to be painted and it expresses much more than words can ever convey. I started it in 2020, put it away and finished it late in 2021. So what’s the story?
When you look at one of my paintings I want you to find your own story so it feels as though it’s personal to you, not me. If you choose to invite one of my paintings into your home it becomes part of your story and I love sending them out into the world to find a new home and a life of their own. I often say very little about the paintings, so I can leave space for your own interpretation. “Beyond words but sensed and understood”.
Sometimes it’s good to share a little more to put the artwork in context. The inspiration for this painting came as I sat on the bench in my garden during lockdown, filled with sadness. Nature has an uncanny way of soothing the soul, and I noticed the sunlight catching the fronds of the weeping willow tree over our garden pond. There was something about the blackness of the pond juxtaposed against the brightness of the sunlight on the new growth of the tree that gave me hope and lifted my spirits at a fundamental level. It’s this essence of hope in difficult times that I wanted to portray in the painting. I painted the darkness first, but it was only much later that I felt really ready to paint the sunlight and hopefulness into the painting and when I did it needed to be with a lightness of touch befitting the emotion.
I took a couple of photos for reference, but I wanted to paint the feelings rather than a photographic representation. Here are the photos.
For me it’s a painting packed full of emotion, but on the wall it may seem like “just another painting” to the casual passer by.
The painting is now framed and I’m excited that it has been selected for exhibition at the Muse Gallery in London along with two other paintings as part of the Free Painters and Sculptors (FPS) Members’ exhibition 2-20th February. I can’t wait to see it on the wall of this beautiful little gallery on the iconic Portobello Road.
These two tondos shown here with it are very much a reflection of the time of uncertainty during 2020. The one on the left is called “Adrift”. It has some beautiful textural gestures with the pale grey in the top area reminiscent of some of my earlier seascapes, but the experimental work I was engaged in at the time is starting to materialise and forming something new and exciting. This one was painted purely by intuition with no physical reference. I wanted to express some of the emotions I was feeling, so I leave it to your own interpretation. Here are a couple of close ups from “Adrift”.
The painting on the right is “A Swathe of Gold”. The gold comes from a beautiful little patch of wildflowers in my garden which was a sea of golden California poppies. I became fascinated by these beautiful flowers for several months, watching them open in the mornings and close at night, with the petals wrapping themselves up in an elegant embrace.
So there’s a little of the thoughts behind these paintings.
FPS at the Muse
2-20 February
Tuesdays – Sundays 12-6pm
Preview Thursday 3rd February 6-9pm
Artists’ Talks Saturday 12 February 2-5pm
The Muse269 Gallery
269 Portobello Rd
London W11 1LR
