The Moon & The Sun, 2023

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An Alchemical Linking

An Alchemical Linking, oil on canvas 50cm x 50 cm, 2023.

The Birth of a Circle

The Birth of a Circle, oil on canvas, 50cm x 50cm, 2023.

Still Arousing

Still Arousing, oil on canvas, 70cm x 70cm, 2023

Fledgling Fold's First Flight

Fledgling Fold’s First Flight, oil on canvas, 40cm x 40cm, 2023

Sharing a Symbolic Life

Sharing a Symbolic Life, oil on canvas 70cm x 70cm, 2023.

Cosmic Landscape

Cosmic Landscape, oil on canvas 80cm x 80 cm, 2023.

Stirring Beneath

Stirring Beneath, oil on canvas 50cm x 50 cm, 2023.

The Moon and The Sun

The Moon and The Sun, oil on canvas 50cm x 50 cm, 2023.

Magic Circles of Transformation

Magic Circles of Transformation, oil on canvas 50cm x 50 cm, 2023.

These paintings arise without predetermined form; they take shape through contemplative, receptive methods that let images surface from the psyche. The series moves between lunar and solar consciousness, drawing from the Rosarium Philosophorum, a sixteenth-century sequence of alchemical woodcuts. Luna mediates milkiness; Sol coagulates. Their dance traces inner process: decay, gestation, renewal.

Each work begins in darkness, seeking the prima materia, the raw substance of transformation. Through layered marks and gestures, figures and symbols appear and dissolve; a vessel; a red thread; a flower from the underworld. A boat becomes a coracle. Luna appears. Then Sol. The process moves. Perhaps in a spiral, perhaps in a distributed pattern.

Influences drift through: alchemy; psychology; mythic cosmologies; calendrical cycles. Creatures and portals hover beneath the surface; some unnamed, some felt in the body. The images listen as much as they speak. My practice moves between painting, writing and ritual: a devotional alchemy of attention. It waits and tend what comes, however strange.

2023 — The Order of the Sun and Moon: St Ives, The Crypt Gallery, St Ives
2023 — “Art, the Academy and the Occult,” with Emma Sharples, Treadwell’s Books, London
2023 — Artist talk with Dr Amy Hale, The Order of the Sun and Moon, Treadwell’s Books, London