Barren
Much of fear centres on various types of lack. A sense of perpetual nothingness and barrenness where instead we might wish there was plenty.
Fear elicits a heaviness. It feels like a weighted, encroaching, veil that folds over you. I tried to convey this sense of dark, slow, enveloping in this painting. This painting shows both the sparseness and the congestedness of fear. Like an oil slick, or a dense fog, it comes from above and pours over the vacant space.
I find it interesting that fearing nothingness creates a feeling that is, in contrast, thick and engulfing.
Oil on Canvas
60cms x 60cms
Painted in 2025
Non Linear Progress
This painting confronts the narrative that we should see undaunted linear progression in our lives.
Traditional ideas of progress feel linked with “success”, and both terms are defined by what our mainstream culture sees as acceptable, but not necessarily what is good, or right, or true for each of us. I think it can equate to a sort of social conformity. If you’re on the line you’re accepted as “successful” and if you are off it then god help you. The spirallic path can feel like failure in comparison to the linear one, evoking a pressure, judgement and comparison from others and ourselves.
But the spirallic path is closer to how things more naturally evolve. Centring it helps us to reject judgement and commit to the truth of our path, whatever it looks like.
Oil on canvas
80cms x 80cms
Painted in 2025
Cocoon
This painting speaks to the feeling of having ended one life but not yet inhabiting whatever the next one may be: incubation, evolution, constriction and the unknown.
It is part of my latest series reflecting on fear, stagnation and aridity.
Oil on canvas
60cms x 60cms
Painted in 2025