'Portal'

So, there’s a story behind this painting. I started sharing it with friends as they asked questions at our May AOH Open Studio show. When I told one friend the story, they insightfully remarked that they felt the first window on the top left appeared to have the most remnants of human presence as reflected in the office chair, but that the windows moving clockwise became more abstract and each one progressively represented less human presence, until total absence.

My initial inspiration for the subject matter was found when I was struck by the scene of a deserted office block lit in acid yellow flourescent lighting, whilst walking through Worthing at night after a gig. The empty office block was illuminated but nobody was in it, which seemed wasteful but also strange. It looked eerie but in the day would be full of life with busy office workers. I felt inspired to take photos of it to create a painting.

The process of painting this piece was tumultuous and emotional, and practically involved layering paint, scraping it off, adding marks again, smudging paint wildly, removing paint with a rag again, re-drawing, measuring, standing back, tearing my hair out and questioning my life choices. I finally got to what I thought was the latter stage of the painting, but still needed to complete the fourth window on the bottom left. However, no matter what I painted in the window it did not work. The deadline for the show was looming.

Then, I had the very sad news that my friend had passed away. We used to meet every couple of months for coffee or lunches out and we checked in on the phone weekly. We had been neighbours for many years until I moved. It was a terrible shock. As time passed in grief and in continuing to work on the painting, an instinct told me to paint the fourth window in shades of black. It looked like a portal into the unknown. An absence. The lights turned off. Mysterious shadows and then no recognisable forms. The painting is now called ‘Portal’.

Life is precious. R.I.P. Carol; the friend I could be totally myself with- warts and all, as we laughed loudly in our messy madness.x