A more than bearable life and a journey.

small view. oil on canvas.160x120cm

My son berates me for not going anywhere: he wants to know why I don't want to travel. I do, I have. But actually I go lots of places and I do it in paint. Sometimes I time travel and visit the Renaissance, or NewYork in the fifties. I walk  down the lane, I walk in the garden around the house and this journeying is here, now, past and future. The movement of paint is the movement of time and it is memorable for me and more immediate than visiting another place which fades when I come home. The place where I make my paintings changes all the time and my painting changes with it: I never know where it will take me or how it will change my point of view. It is no wonder that painters are so enthralled by paint which occupies the mind so profoundly, a finely tuned antenna to our bodies and minds. The thoughtful observer of a painting sees where the painter has been and where that painter wanted to go. The marks describe the nuances of the hand's motion, the eye's motion, the mind's ranging.

It is in this act of traveling, when so much that we think we know about the world is packaged and fleeting that the slow journey through paint can be so lasting and sustaining - and fun.

                    
                                                                 oil on canvas.30x30cm

garden drawing, winter. ink and emulsion.

90x75cm