Illustrations

Crescent Moon Bear series

The paintings are illustrations for the Crescent Moon Bear, a traditional Japanese story. The tale was used in the book ‘Women Who Run With The Wolves’ by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

A man returns from the war in a terrible rage refusing all comforts from his wife and retreats to the forest. The woman seeks help from a healer who asks for an item for a potion, but it involves a long and arduous journey. The woman undertakes the challenge and returns with the requested hair from the crescent moon bear. However, the healer destroys the hair, and then asks the woman to reflect on all she has learnt, and apply it in the journey back to her man.

Fear

Acrylic Inks & collage on board

2019

30 x 29cm

Unframed

£380

Guidance

2019

Acrylic Inks & collage

Unframed

15 x 24 cm

£350

Journey

2019

Acrylic ink on board

Unframed

34 x 39 cm

£470

Gratitude

2019

Acrylic Inks & collage

Unframed

29.5 x 40 cm

£560

Perseverence

2019

Acrylic board

Unframed

30 x 30 cm

£410

Feeding the Bear

feeding-the-bear

2019

Acrylic on board

Unframed

23 x 23 cm

£330

Facing Fear

feeding-the-bear-ii

2019

Acrylic Inks & collage

Unframed

24 x 28 cm

£410

Healing

Healing from phone

2019

Acrylic board

Unframed

30 x 30 cm

£410

Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf

The Firebird & the Golden Apples

Oil on board

An illustration from a traditional Russian tale involving a complicated quest to find the beautiful Firebird found stealing Golden apples from the Tsar’s palace.

For an exhibition with the Artists303 'Contrasts Then & Now'. Based on an early pastel, Running Through Woods, 1997, which was also exhibited.

2019

84 x 60 cm

Ornate dark wood frame

£1400

'The Crossroads'

The Crossroads

Acrylic on board

Painted while Brexit was very much in the news before Covid-19 took over.

The Gray Wolf is waiting for Tsarevitch Ivan to stop at the crossroads on his horse and to make a decision. The runes on the stone way-marker read: one way your horse will die; another you will die but your horse will live; the third leads to hunger, cold and getting lost.

This painting was one of two new works for the exhibition ‘Then & Now’ based on my painting of ‘Longleat Copse’.

2019

60 x 40 cm

Ornate dark wood frame

£1200

Skeleton Woman Series

The series of paintings are inspired by a mythical story - The Skeleton Woman which comes from ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype’ written by Jungian analyst, author and poet Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

I began the series of paintings in 2009 as a  return to figurative work after a long period of working in abstracts.

I have always had a love of story-telling, either in the listening, or in the telling. Over a number of years I have told stories with the help of others willing to act out the roles in the stories. This can be a profound experience as myths and folklore deal with a number of universal human experiences.

The Skeleton Woman is a life/death/life story – the Wild Woman is unafraid of difficulties in learning to love another person. Seeing their imperfections, and facing your own discomfort is a courageous and loyal way to live - from the death of one view of the self comes a new way of living.

The pieces are all in mixed media and differ in size – also symbolic of the stages in a journey of self.

Folder

Falling

Oil on board

2009

87 x 61

 

Not for sale

Falling

 

How can the beauty of woman be pushed aside

Rejected

What lies ahead

Dis-order Fear waiting disintegration contemplation

Underlying bones

Bare

Bared

Stripped back

To the core to the bare bones

Of my soul

Skeletal

 

In time

 

Woman whole full complete

Building drawing from the heart to fullness ripe

strength

Skeleton Woman 2

Despair/Drowning/Hope

Mixed media

2010

39.5 x 55.5cm

 

Not for sale

Fishing JPEG

Fishing

Oil on board

2010

Unframed

24" x 60"

 

Not for Sale

Running, Skeleton Woman No 4

Running

Acrylic on canvas

2011

Unframed

90.5 x 30.5 cm

Not for sale

'Tangled Bones' Crescent Moon Bear series

Tangled Bones

Acrylic + paper on canvas

2019

Unframed

60 x 60 cm

Not for sale