Dawn Fires Exhibition at Atlantis Bookshop opens

Courtney and I put up our exhibition on Monday, I'd finished another painting, Land of the Dragon which went up as well. Following the intuitive and imaginative way of working that I've used for the other paintings in this series, the landscape slowly emerged. I knew it was waiting for a being of some sort of being and a red dragon seemed to be the creature needed. This landscape actually turned out to be the land of this dragon and an opening in the hillside framed with carved and incised stone became the dragons cave. A comet which was part of the sky from the outset seems to blaze a trail full of stars towards the cave, while crow watched from one of the standing stones. Was this comet heralding a further awakening of the dragon or land ?




The Atlantis Bookshop exhibition space is a small space with a lot of esoteric history, which suits the themes of the work. We've sorted a range of prints to go with the exhibition and there are cards too. So I'm hoping we have a good turn out at the private view on Friday 21st 7pm and look forward to meeting people and showing them the work.

The exhibition is open Monday to Saturday 10,30 till 6pm at the Atlantis Bookshop 49a Museum street London, WC1A 1LY

New paintings for Dawn Fires

I have been continuing to explore this more symbolic and mythical strand to my work where symbols like the moon seem to appearing in abundance. I am still working intuitively with these paintings, reflecting and allowing forms to arise in my mind or directly on the canvas.

In Tree of Stars, and Homage to the Moon I was drawing on the traditions of the Tree of Life, or World Tree. The tree that links the levels of the world from the underworld to the heavens. In Tree of Stars, there is also reference to alchemical texts, where symbols are often depicted on a tree. Here stars in red, white and gold hang from the tree, and a large blackbird who can often be heard singing late into the night, also holds a luminous star on a red thread.
The star seems to be an offering of light to any traveller who intends to enter the doorway set inside the hill and venture on the paths below.

A standing stone inscribed with the marks of the Goddess stands outside the doorway guarding its entrance and symbols of the labyrinth are marked in the fields. As I was painting this picture it seemed as though it was taking on the qualities of a talisman itself.


Homage to the Moon, as the title suggests began with not one but two moons in the rich blue of the night sky. More and more moons have been appearing in these more symbolic paintings over the last few months. I'm not sure where this will lead but for now I paint the moons.
The World Tree in this painting has rich foliage and the celtic and Goddess marks upon its trunk and branches and a white bird with echos of the luminous moon flys across it.

A dragon lies uncurling under the roots of the tree contemplating or watching a smaller moon and a monk sits meditating infront of the entrance to a cave, with his own luminous moon in his lap. It seemed that everything in the painting was paying homage to the moon.

Some of my paintings will be in a Dawn Fires exhibition in the Atlantis Bookshop Gallery.
Link to Dawn Fires here The exhibition runs from 17th to 29th October, link to Atlantis Bookshop address and contact details here

New Paintings and exhibitions

I've been working hard on a series of new paintings for some exhibitions comimg up in the Autumn with some friends of mine. The top painting is called Landscape of Ancient Dreams. It's an acrylic on board and I'm pleased with the colours of the acrylics and the glow of all those moons!

Often in this form of painting my process is highly intuitive, I don't ask many questions of myself and just let things arrive in the picture at first. Later I will spend quite a long time just looking at the work and seeing if all the elements work together, if more aspects need to be added or changed and if the colours represent the forms. As I was painting Landscape of Ancient Dreams the moons kept "arriving" on the picture and in fact I had to leave a few out! The symbolism of Egyptian culture, Buddhism and China seemed to want to be part of the landscape, although the land itself is British.

There are the trees that usually inhabit my work and an entrance to an underground tunnel or cave which has the symbols of lotus and moon and star from ancient Egyptian tradition. The tree above the entrance is symbolic of the tree of life and holds the owl as a symbol of wisdom.




The next picture is called Elements of Earth and follows a similar pastel I did of the same subject. In this picture are references to the start of life, the large sun's rays are reaching down and some are actually touching the earth. I have this sense of indistinct shapes in the ground and others like seeds waiting to break into life.
There is a tree of life just to one side whose roots stretch deep into the earth and a spirit of birds hinting at the life in the skies and the sprit of human life.

These and other paintings( I will put on the next blog) will be showing at Fuggles Studio and Gallery near Bridport in Dorset 1st till 28th of September. info about the gallery here

Then at The Atlantis Bookshop Museum street London 17th till 29th October info about Atlantis Bookshop here