Month: February 2024

Oil on wood – 30 x 40 cm.

Woke to a frozen sea this morning. Took the kayak out, pushing through cracking, splintering ice, the sound echoing round the bay. Violet, cobalt shadows deep in the hollow of the hills.

Taynish Nature Reserve Argyll. Seven thousand year old Atlantic oak woods tumble down to saltmarsh. Catkins, frogspawn, a bumble bee. Sun, fungi, ferns and waterfalls. Special. West coast air to refuel the spirit.

Oil on panel – 20 x 25 cm.

Water juggles over rock, through trees, emptying into the moor to join the pooling, trickling, lapping, bubbling bog. My trainers are sucked from my feet, already sodden, shrivelled. The train pulls into the station, a leap across the burn, pink pebbles, embroidered silver lichen. Black velvet pools of peat smell of time, its scent drifts across this impossible place. Flinty, sharpening winds usher clouds, sift icing rain. The mountains disappear. All that remains is the moss beneath my feet, sinking slowly. Above, the sky considers its options, decides to lay low for now at least. Small birds sing their song across the moor. I am gone.

Bitumen, jute and gesso on wood – 95 x 95 cm.

A cuttle wind from the east skirrs disconsolate crows to peck at stony earth. Ice grimes the riverbank, a frozen record of the last high tide. Ashen mud shudders, shrinks below, leaving the naked reeds to whisper stories of winters dead.

Mixed media on wood – 30 x 40 cm.