“The earth after the shower was fresh; a river of life flowed.” - 'Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway'

This painting is inspired by the discovery of an ancient, overgrown pool in a field near my home—its surface scattered with lily pads and iris fronds. Drawing on Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, I explore the idea of “water and the sky,” a space where consciousness drifts toward oblivion. As Woolf writes, “In the depths, light trembled still.” It is a place where hallucination dissolves the boundary between self and world.

The paintings are both ethereal and soft, yet marked by distressed, scratched textures—suggesting mental friction, fragmentation, and a surrender to either the depth of the waters or the reflections on their surface. Reeds and lily pads transform into ghostly, dripping calligraphic lines—memories trying to rise. We exist between layers.

Clarissa’s green dress in the novel is likened to “mermaids singing, each to each.” My work feels submerged in a similar way—our identities fluid and shifting. There is a sense of delicacy here, of transient, elusive beauty.

Oil, raw pigment, oil bar and gesso on board in 1920s Art Deco antique frame 104 cm w x 83 cm h unframed 138 cm w x 119 cm h x 8 cm d