Drowning

Oil painting on Aluminium Composite Panel While I was painting this wave/splash, I could see in my mind similar images from my past. The strongest image was the water raising up above my eyes, slowly, in an unstoppable dynamic. The next memory associated with that is of me on the beach next to my brother who hurt himself while he was saving me from drowning. He stepped on a nail which was inside of a wood piece. During the progress of the artwork the memory became more vivid and I could feel not only the beauty of water, but also its dynamic and strength which influenced my brush strokes and my approach to the artwork. Water can be a destroyer when it is in the form of tsunamis, floods,… Catastrophic flood legends are almost in every culture. We can use water but its ability to dominate and inundate us is far greater. Japanese poet Ki no Tsurayuki captured the two faces of water in the Tosa Nikki (AD 936): 'Seeking to fathom the mind of the raging god, we cast a mirror into the stormy sea. In that his image is revealed. An amazing experience surely this cannot be the god whom we commonly associate with such gentle things as “Limpid Waters,” “The Balm of Forgetfulness,” and “Pines along the Shore”? We have all seen with our own eyes— and with the help of a mirror— what sort of a god he is.'