I explore the themes of impermanence and yearning in my Marsh series. Wild and seemingly inaccessible, marshland grasses, rushes and reeds form a transition between land and water, grounding and fluidity. Human transition periods are usually ones of waiting, for instance, gestation, adolescence, mid-life and dying. In each of these periods one waits impatiently to get to the other side and time can appear as interminable, one homogenous flat expanse, like the marsh. But underneath the surface, the marsh teems with excitement and activity we rarely see. Marshes act like filters, dragging down into their sediment all that is not fit for the sea. They are among the richest ecosystems on the planet. Each transitional period in human life offers the opportunity for profound creativity whether through the ultimate acts of giving birth or letting go, or mining the depths of our own consciousness to find out where exactly we fit in this world, an ongoing and ever changing process.

Using a combination of soft and hard pastels on a sanded ground, I layer tone on tone to create a feeling of depth and excitement while at the same time giving the vast expanses of marshland a consistency to imbue the painting with a feeling of calm. This dichotomy is intended to reveal the idiosyncrasies that exist within us all. Compositionally, the horizon line in each piece is usually at the middle of the page. Marsh and water appear in the lower half, the top is occupied only by the everchanging sky whose mood is always reflected by the marsh.