A few post cards I have been making for prisoners of conscience in the Amnesty Write for Rights campaign. These are people who have been imprisoned for speaking out about monumental injustices, standing up for human rights, fighting for their very homes and environment, or for their loved ones killed for doing the same. These post cards go directly to prisoners of conscience or their families.

I believe art connects people and can be a small comfort to someone who is suffering, especially if they have been imprisoned for defending human rights.

 

Unique moments produced from watercolour and soft pastel on pastel paper. Each original is 17.7 cm x 13.7 cm and framed in a white box-frame 6cm deep, ready to hang.

Each picture can be purchased individually or as part of this unique set of four. The price is £50 each (with or without frame) or £180 for the set of four before postage.

Please feel welcome to contact me if you have any questions of if you would like to make a purchase.

 

Autumn Colours... (oil pastel available in Works on Paper)

It's warming to see autumn colours as the temperature drops!

 

Goodbye summer, hello winter. The branches seem to wave goodbye, and their leaves begin to fall away for autumn.

"Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. 

Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. 

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail."

- Lao Tzu

 

The old hollow beech tree (pencil sketch)

I went back to my old stomping ground (London). I went back to the old hollow beech tree I used to go to and climb into. Now it's cordoned off to protect its roots. Still, it was good to find the same peace again. I felt safe being near such an old being, growing imperceptibly through life, as I had jumped through. Together we have shared the earth. I had grown, this old tree had grown older; I had gone through all that, the tree had always been here; I had gone here and there, and I had gone far away. The tree was always here. And now we pick up where we left off, like old friends, my heart instantly filling this space.

 

Affirmation
Pencil drawing with gouache on yellow paper
24 cm x 34 cm

Last year, at the end of summer, I saw a pale green-yellow butterfly on a country lane. It was dying, and I placed it gently on my hand as it died. It was so delicate, unbelievably delicate. What had been its world? Our worlds, both so different, both so real. Maybe I was the only human it ever knew. It seemed to say silently to me, "You know what they say, death isn't the end. This shows up life, such as it is. My fragility belies its power; there is an unstoppable energy which lives through my delicate wings. After I have died, it is still here, invisibly - but take it from me, it is here and everywhere." This impression was so reassuring even as it faded away. An affirmation of life.

This artwork is offered for sale as part of the Artist Support Pledge on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrymjJ_NEfO/

 

Cosmic Orphan

30 cm x 38 cm, acrylic on board

There is some kind of comfort in realising that nothing is fixed and nothing is truly solid, though our perception deceives us. Change is inevitable, it is nature's way and we are caught up in the current. Just as we are not fixed in space, we are not defined by who we are in one moment; what we see is a snapshot of a long journey, and at any junction, we might find we cannot say what we truly are. I took the title Cosmic Orphan from an essay I loved by Loren Eiseley, where he describes this ever-changing journey, "You are a changeling. Life is indefinite departure. That is why we are all orphans. Life is not stable. Everything alive is slipping through cracks and crevices in time, changing as it goes -- You have learned to ask questions. That is why you are an orphan. You are the only creature in the universe who knows what it has been. Now you must go on asking questions while all the time you are changing. You will ask what you are to become. The world will no longer satisfy you. You must find your way, your own true self."

International Day of The Forest

 

Trees are my number one for inspiration. Everywhere I go, I always look for them. Since I was young, I've been in awe of trees; each one silently contains an untold story. Many of them have been there longer than us and that fascinates me. There is one micro story behind each drawing or painting I make, which is from my experience. Trees always make me feel inspired, resilient, hopeful and calm again.

The answer to the big 'why' and to understanding ourselves is potentially anywhere.

"Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man's world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?" - Viktor E. Frankl