On The Moon And The Sun

The Moon and the Sun is a series of nine paintings and nine textual fragments exploring transformation through the language of the unconscious.

Emerging from a process I understand as painting from the psyche, not only my own but a shared, interconnected field, these works arise without predetermined form. They find their shape through contemplative, receptive methods that allow images to surface organically.

I believe the soul paints its own transformation.

At the heart of this series is the dance between lunar and solar consciousness, inspired by the Rosarium Philosophorum, a sixteenth-century sequence of alchemical woodcuts. Luna mediates milkiness; Sol coagulates. Their interplay recognises inner process: decay, gestation, renewal.

Each painting begins in darkness, seeking what alchemy calls the Prima Materia, the raw substance of transformation. Through layers of marks and gestures, figures and symbols appear and dissolve: a vessel, a red thread, a flower near the underworld. A boat becomes a coracle. Luna appears. Then Sol. The process moves in a spiral.

The work draws from esoteric and psychological traditions, including alchemy, depth psychology, mythic cosmologies and calendrical cycles. These influences filter into the space of emergence. Creatures, portals, wombs and beings drift across and sit beneath the surface. Many cannot be named. They arrive through dream, attention, listening. Some are felt in the body. Others emerge from the edges.

My wider practice moves between painting, writing and ritual. Sometimes I begin with a grid of uncertain lines. Sometimes with a mark I do not recognise. The Moon and the Sun explores painting as a devotional, alchemical practice. To listen. To wait. To tend what comes. However strange.