It’s an extraordinary thing to me that what there is is light between us, not darkness. I never thought I could have a love like this. I never thought I’d be whole enough, brave enough, to live in the light and not the shadows. To have a partner who is himself full of gentle light, who prefers sunshine to bruises, but can also find beauty in the scars I carry, both inside and out.
This artwork began as a photograph I made a photograph of two flowers sticking up from a random potplant on my studio stairs. The light was shining through them so beautifully, the two separate flowers holding space so gently together. It wasn’t until I got the print back to the studio that I handwrote “this light between us” over it, began making my marks. I wanted it raw and calm and beautiful and gentle all at once, just like our life together is.
Look closely and you’’l see a bed, and kisses, and a sliver of silver joining the stems of the two flowers. The silver flickers as you move past it, and that what my heart does for him. Silver is the colour of how I feel about us: Calm and passionate and true. There are lots of scratchings-out on this work, I took to parts of it with sandpaper. It’s appropriate that some feelings sit behind others, are only half shown. This artwork, it’s complex, and best seen in life, so the layers and subtlety and scale can be fully appreciated.
As to the colour, I’ve loved this particular green-blue since I was 18 and painted my bedroom this exact shade. It reminds me of the sea and the earth at the same time, of an emotional life which is strong and sure of itself. A life lived boldly. It also, of course, references Bill Hammond’s brilliant use of this colour. And actually, I just flat out find it sexy AF.
Each artwork in the edition has the blue-green background, and the flowers. The rest is drawn/marked/painted/written on as I see fit. Each print different but expressing the same sentiment. Expressing the rhythm of the space and light between us.
