New work, plans for January

I have very recently completed a work which has taken me around two years to finish. I began it soon after my precious girl dog died, in July 2012. Soon after she died she came to me in a dream, and from above she gave me her skin. I understood the gift of her skin to be a great gift, so I began a piece of work in which I was holding the edges of the skin, the tips between my fingers, with it over my head like a sail or sky of skin. This high sky with its tender underbelly became a struggle to realise and to complete. Now I think it is complete and I see that for me the line of nipples represent the belly of Heaven, the milk of Heaven. I’ve been reading Marina Warner’s great book about the Virgin Mary, and the chapter on the gift of milk is illuminating and beautiful. Where the manifestations of the physical and the divine meet.

The Sin-Eaters watercolour and gum arabic on paper 56 x 63 cm 2014   I have called the picture The Sin Eaters, after reading about the souls who eat the sins of those who wish to enter Heaven.

London: I will be working with Marc Almond again in London in December, and in January I will be working with the Freedom Collective, at the Espacio Gallery, making anti-art: I’ll be working with monotype to tune into people who will become co-creators of drawings and monotypes.