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
2019
Acrylic on board
Unframed
23 x 23 cm
£330
Facing Fear
2019
Acrylic Inks & collage
Unframed
24 x 28 cm
£410
Healing
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
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.
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
Despair/Drowning/Hope
Mixed media
2010
39.5 x 55.5cm
Not for sale
Fishing
Oil on board
2010
Unframed
24" x 60"
Not for Sale
Running
Acrylic on canvas
2011
Unframed
90.5 x 30.5 cm
Not for sale
Tangled Bones
Acrylic + paper on canvas
2019
Unframed
60 x 60 cm
Not for sale