the homesickness blues series
All paintings oil on linen.
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About
The sea paintings started as the end result of a few years longing for the sea.
I've been living overseas for the first time in my life in Sweden - far away from Australia, my native country. I speak to my mother on the phone. I imagine the cables from the northern hemisphere to the southern, travelling over the seas of the world - Lake Mälaren, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Great Australian Bight, Bass Strait, Port Phillip Bay Melbourne. To my mum's house in Carnegie.
Those wave lines in the paintings are conversations.
The sea both divides us and joins us together - it allows something new to grow and connects to something old. Though I think sometimes of the famous poem by Stevie Smith - Not waving but drowning (1953) to express my various moods about living in another country!
The sea in Australia is very different to the sea in Sweden.
Stockholm, Sweden, where I live, lies on the western side of the Baltic Sea, which is flat as a tack and misty shades of grey-green most of the time. It's also brackish, which means it's a mixture of salt water and fresh water so the smell is quite 'delicate' compared. You miss the bracing air and dramatic waves of the Australian seas, though I have definitely grown to love the Baltic.
The bright blues of the Australian seas have no doubt influenced the colour in these paintings. Sometimes they stand alone and sometimes those bright blues intermix with the muted tones of the Baltic and the stony landscape of Sweden.
A few times a year we catch the ferry to Estonia, which lies on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea. The ferry makes an appearance in some of the paintings in the background. Sometimes there's a feeling of joy but other times there is an ominous feeling, which in the paintings signifies the appalling maritime and historical disasters that have occured in the Baltic Sea. Some of these stories were always in the back of my mind when I painted these pictures.
Waves
Standing at the beach looking towards the horizon, a pattern of infinite variety of waves coming towards you. The hypnotic rhythms and sounds washing away your cares. Sometimes the light glitters on the surface - the light messages from the stars. A new freedom enters your soul. Always there's renewal. That is the beauty of the sea to me.
Of course it means something completely different if you've lost a beloved in a tsunami - or in a lake, a pond or in a bath. Or lost your homeland and livelihood because of rising sea levels and pollution. Water and waves can seem cruel. But there's something lost and something found perhaps for everybody?
I've been living overseas for the first time in my life in Sweden - far away from Australia, my native country. I speak to my mother on the phone. I imagine the cables from the northern hemisphere to the southern, travelling over the seas of the world - Lake Mälaren, Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Great Australian Bight, Bass Strait, Port Phillip Bay Melbourne. To my mum's house in Carnegie.
Those wave lines in the paintings are conversations.
The sea both divides us and joins us together - it allows something new to grow and connects to something old. Though I think sometimes of the famous poem by Stevie Smith - Not waving but drowning (1953) to express my various moods about living in another country!
The sea in Australia is very different to the sea in Sweden.
Stockholm, Sweden, where I live, lies on the western side of the Baltic Sea, which is flat as a tack and misty shades of grey-green most of the time. It's also brackish, which means it's a mixture of salt water and fresh water so the smell is quite 'delicate' compared. You miss the bracing air and dramatic waves of the Australian seas, though I have definitely grown to love the Baltic.
The bright blues of the Australian seas have no doubt influenced the colour in these paintings. Sometimes they stand alone and sometimes those bright blues intermix with the muted tones of the Baltic and the stony landscape of Sweden.
A few times a year we catch the ferry to Estonia, which lies on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea. The ferry makes an appearance in some of the paintings in the background. Sometimes there's a feeling of joy but other times there is an ominous feeling, which in the paintings signifies the appalling maritime and historical disasters that have occured in the Baltic Sea. Some of these stories were always in the back of my mind when I painted these pictures.
Waves
Standing at the beach looking towards the horizon, a pattern of infinite variety of waves coming towards you. The hypnotic rhythms and sounds washing away your cares. Sometimes the light glitters on the surface - the light messages from the stars. A new freedom enters your soul. Always there's renewal. That is the beauty of the sea to me.
Of course it means something completely different if you've lost a beloved in a tsunami - or in a lake, a pond or in a bath. Or lost your homeland and livelihood because of rising sea levels and pollution. Water and waves can seem cruel. But there's something lost and something found perhaps for everybody?