The Swamp, the Horse, the Moon and the Bird

2023-2025

oil on canvas

130 x 170cm

Started in 2023 and completed in 2025, the title references the order in which the subjects appeared as the painting was made.

In the first instance, sometime in 2023, utilising only a small amount of citrus turpentine, I applied a dense layer of Quinacridone Gold across the entire surface in an abstract mess. The canvas then sat and looked at me for the entirety of 2024, before I finally decided something had to give and obliterated it with a watery wash of citrus turps and Ultramarine Blue. I then proceeded to sit and observe the myriad of rivulets that created this blue ‘swamp’ and made out the form of the horse which I fashioned in Titanium White. The horse’s ‘aura’ is exhumed Quinacridone and highlights the duel function of the citrus turps as both medium and stripper. The fact that these paintings often evolve over long periods of time means that fully hardened older paint, in this case the Quinacridone, still holds full colour and hardness when exhumed from below more recent paint.