THE MOON AND THE SUN

Series of Nine Paintings, 2023.
Exhibited in The Order of the Sun and Moon, St Ives 2023

Exibition Text

My practice is rooted in a deep exploration of transformation and the hidden dimensions of the psyche. This work emerges from painting the unconscious: not merely my own unconscious, but what I conceive as 'a web of interconnected psyches.' Working without predetermined imagery, I allow forms to surface through processes of emergence and contemplation that encourage the soul to paint its own transformation. This series of paintings hints at unseen threads connecting the soul to its cosmology.

At the heart of this body of work lies the transformational dance between lunar and solar consciousness, an interest that has emerged through my sustained engagement with the 20 woodcuts from the 16th-century Rosarium Philosophorum (The Rosary of the Philosophers). This anthology of alchemical wisdom depicts the symbolic relationship between Luna and Sol: figures representing different aspects of psyche, both of whom undergo radical transformation. The lunar mediates between solar awareness and the deep unconscious realms, and the solar mediates between lunar awareness and the active external realms, facilitating a process of psychic transformation that mirrors the seasonal cycles of decay, gestation, birth, and renewal.

My paintings begin in the darkness, seeking what alchemists termed the prima materia: the first matter that undergoes transformation. My paintings begin with automatic and receptive techniques, then with considered micro-decisions develop through successive layering of figures, landscapes, and abstract patterns. Starting from raw intuitive gestures, I build surfaces where cosmic terrains, figurative elements, and geometric forms interact in a tidal process of emergence and response.

In these paintings, Luna and Sol's dance manifests through womb-like forms, cosmic terrains, and otherworldly creatures that inhabit what I experience as a 'cosmic psychic net.' These forms emerge on the canvas from a shrouded and invisible place: I cannot see or visualise them, but I feel them deeply in my body, my organs, my psyche, and in the external landscape. Animals and strange beings surface in these paintings, suggesting interspecies encounters and communications that transcend ordinary perception. What begins as something painterly twists into magical, spiritual, psychological realms and back again.

The series opens with ‘The Moon and The Sun,’ where the lunar elements lie on the right side and solar elements on the left—though as in the Rosarium. The solar side presents a field with what appears as a phallus chalked into the earth like an ancient symbol, with a mysterious loop on its left. On the lunar side, we can see into the land itself; what is usually hidden begins to emerge through a blue gauze beneath which lies a pink triangle. The moon is half revealed and half hidden, deep in the ground rather than in the sky. A boat or perhaps a coffin sits at the top of the hill, with a white loop emerging from it, underneath which rests the sun.

‘Stirring Beneath’ evokes the seasonal festival of Bealtaine with its associations of sexuality, life, and joy. Two suns are embedded in the earth, alongside two pink hills that might be breasts, two pale blue ovals suggesting bottom, female organ and legs. Curved white phallic fronds gently touch other elements while the head of a bird peeps out at the bottom, possibly being born.

‘Cosmic Landscape’ opens the liminal territory where transformation unfolds. The womb-like shape with its red and blue figure seems to float, while the white loop in the sky echoes its form. Two yellow creatures slumber in the land, and a yellow seed or anchor rests upon, emerges from, or disappears into a dark portal in the sky. The pink hills reappear, one forming an archway or doorway.

‘Sharing a Symbolic Life’ shows the moon's power rising as the lunar transforms. The earth and sky seem energised, things are moving. The boat/coffin/tomb is now shrouded in green gauze, perhaps undergoing its own transformation—possibly a symbol of the whole self.’

‘Fledgling Fold's First Flight’ marks what may be the beginning of the transformation of the solar aspects of the psyche. The fledgling fold, looking like an eager paper aeroplane, heads off towards the sun. When it emerged on the canvas, I wondered if it would fly too close to the sun like Icarus, or whether it might succeed in its journey. It recalls the alchemical homunculus and homuncula heading skywards in the Rosarium.

‘Magic Circles of Transformation’ presents the circular processes through which consciousness learns to move between different states.

‘Still Arousing’ seems concerned with the transformative power of the sun, particularly its relationship to nurturing, gestation, and growth. As the solar aspects transform, the conscious mind becomes more open, more aware that the unknown is always present. It slows down, becomes less rash, more contemplative.

‘The Birth of a Circle’ shows the boat/self transformed from dark coffin to colourful coracle which, if unfolded, might even be a mandala. The little pink creature in its peach circle is born, while the green sperm-like formation wends its way across the earth and up into the sky. The moon-like form on the left shines its path backwards and upwards.

The series concludes with ‘An Alchemical Linking.’ From the shrouded boat emerges a two-headed form - a kind of lords and ladies flower - and a little hook that comforts the moon. The lower part seems to offer a view of what's happening within the earth itself, while above, sharp shadows suggest a hot sunny day. The strand connecting the flower to the moon hook seems to magically link dark and light together.

I work with liminal spaces: borderline regions that exist between worlds, drawing upon esoteric traditions including alchemy, seasonal mysticism, and Jungian and Ettigerian psychology. The paintings often recall the symbolic imagery of the Rosarium, where Luna and Sol's transformation unfolds through a series of encounters, separations, and provisional co-emergence.

The work is infused with awareness of calendrical transformation: the movement between lightness and darkness through the year, aligned with seasonal festivals and cycles that Jung recognised in alchemical operations. These seemingly disparate traditions - from the I-Ching to Marx's dialectical materialism to contemporary theories of consciousness—connect in my cosmology 'through loops and holes; crochet-like,' forming nets of elements that weave together with magic, alchemy, and ritual.

Through sustained contemplation of what emerges on the canvas, I work with painting as both spiritual practice and psychological enquiry. The conscious mind learns to embrace non-knowing, becoming more open, more aware that the unknown is always present. In states of what psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger terms 'fragilisation,' fragments from my psyche dance around fragments from elsewhere, from other worlds, from others: encountering mutual transformation.

The Moon and The Sun explores painting as a transformative practice capable of revealing the interconnected nature of psyche and cosmos, individual soul and constellated form. Through patient attention to what wishes to emerge from the cosmic web of linked consciousness, these paintings offer glimpses into realms where magic, psychology, and artistic practice converge.