I keep telling myself “This one will be different.
THIS ONE WILL BE DIFFERENT.
THIS…ONE…WILL…BE…DIFFERENT…”
And it always is, and it never is.
I dive into the water. An intangible dance, a fluid existence, submission to a force greater than yourself. An explosion of sound, an entire orchestra of emotion and cleansing, moving through the contours of life, shaping and re-shaping. Ever adapting and evolving. Flowing through the crevices of uncertainty.
Comfort in a rhythm of change.
The process seems simple when I start thinking about it more.
Over the years I had been increasing a natural input in my work, allowing it to be more personal; could people tell I was splitting myself in two?
A profound moment on a secret beach, alone, crying, holding a stone in one hand and a piece of sea glass in the other.
I shaped a surfboard recently, it felt like art. A material potential, a movement towards form and shape and colour. A finished object as a residual to the performance of making. An object with open interpretation, emotional experience, a place where I could meditate.
A cyclical arrival.
I am thinking about different surfaces, transparencies, forms, and my speed. How painting is the manipulation of light, you take different materials that absorb or reflect and use them as a way of manipulating the light. Where are the edges of this process? Where is the edge of my comfort zone?
A collection of work begins to emerge, like a collection of seaside ephemera; rocks, sea glass, shells, coral…. Some familiar things too, reimagined. Moments in time, paintings in the sky and light dancing over the water, references that I have been coming back to for some time.
In the introspection I find ripples from the deeper currents pulling me towards the unknown.
A fire starts in my belly.
Like the water carves away the rock, these other inputs shape me. I flow between my worlds, between passions and ideas, blending the boundaries until they blur into nothingness. I embrace the ebb and flow of emotions (in this process I have many), in the fluidity of being is freedom. As I dive deeper into a more fluid existence, embracing change, embracing movement, embracing life in all its unpredictable beauty, I realise I have become water.