Sky Tears
Oil on Canvas, 180 × 125 cm, 2024

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In painting Sky Tears, I explore the concept of destruction and renewal in relation to my own transformation and the rebirth of a new self. I use the abstraction of meteors falling from the night sky into a garden, where a rose blooms at the centre. The rose continues to bloom amongst the chaos, symbolising resilience and transformation, growing with strength from within, even through uncontrollable circumstances.

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I express an intensity within this abstraction by contrasting deep blues and both bright and dark greens with fiery oranges and yellows. I aim to create a balance between warm and cool tones. Through gestural mark-making and vibrant colour, I communicate the power of these forces. Through this, I suggest that the natural world within the painting is responding to something greater, representing a spiritual experience through a cosmic narrative.

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This work sits in dialogue with the gestural intensity of Joan Mitchell, the raw emotional force and movement of Willem de Kooning, and the energetic, almost cosmic mark-making of Kazuo Shiraga. There are also echoes of the atmospheric depth and spiritual charge found in Mark Rothko, though here expressed through a more explosive and physical language.

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Sky Tears explores the idea that moments of overwhelm, impact, or emotional intensity are not purely destructive; they can also be generative. The painting becomes a space where collapse and creation exist simultaneously.