Painting in a Pandemic
I started this painting in the first few months of the pandemic lock-down. I had made it after someone asked me to make some watercolours of View From a Cave - a subject I had originally explored in 2015 during a residency in Gotland, Sweden, where I visited a Stone Age dwelling. Within that cave, I was struck by how humans had used this space 7000-8000 years ago - I wondered what they thought of this 'view', if they saw a window or a 'landscape' and, tucked safely in this quiet space with the world swirling outside did they feel isolated? introspective?
The pandemic brought these notions back into consciousness, thinking about shelter and isolation and a primordial need to shelter in place. The watercolours were commissioned to be part of the Arts Umbrella fundraiser in Vancouver in 2020 to raise funds for art programming for kids. Pictures of them can be viewed in the 'Paper" section here on this website.