TURQUOISE SHUTTERS, INDIA / 2024 / ARYLIC ON PAPER / $2800. It seems that in India even the simplest of things display amazing beauty…like this scene of someone’s laundry hung out to dry. Still dripping, bright orange and yellow clothes are flanked by the turquoise doors, marked, scuffed and worn. The composition is divided dramatically by the diagonals of the wires.
THE SECRET DOOR / ACRYLIC ON PAPER / 2023 / US$ 2400. In India, something intriguing lies around every corner. This alcove was set into a wall with a small wooden door, pink, worn, carved and cracked. What was it for? What did it represent? In the roughly textured whitewashed wall, a hole was filled with a broken stone. I added text (in Sanskrit and barely visible) to convey the sense of time passing, painting layers until I had captured the sense of place.
SOLD...SHIKARA, NAGIN LAKE / 2018 / ACRYLIC ON PAPER. Early one misty morning on Nagin Lake in Kashmir, India, I sketched and photographed this Shakira, filled with flowers being paddled into the morning sun. I completed the painting when I got back to my studio in New Zealand, capturing the peace and beauty of the moment.
MURIWAI BEACH, WINTER / 2023 / ACRYLIC ON PAPER / US$2800. 31" X 20", 79cms X 50cms. Beaches on New Zealand's west coast are famous for grey sand and, in the winter, rough, stormy weather. The waves and rip tides can make it a dangerous place to swim, but walking along the empty miles of beach at this time of year is a celebration of seagulls, wind, dark clouds and white surf.
SOLD...BACK ALLEY, FLORENCE / 2013 / ACRYLIC ON PAPER. I painted “Back Alley, Florence” from a photo I took years ago and which became the small, stained reference photo for this work. I really wanted to capture the strong contrast between the intense slash of light in the alley surrounded by the large area of shadow. The poster on the wall to the right is part of a poem I wrote, translated into Italian. It is almost impossible to read—hidden as it is in the shadows and faded with time.
CHERBOURG HARBOUR, FRANCE / 2018 / ACRYLIC ON PAPER / US$ 2800. Painted on a month-long sailing trip around the northern coast of France with my father. I loved peace and serenity of these harbors, the quiet lapping of water on the hulls, the slap of the halyards on masts. This painting captures the geometric patterns of sails, rigging and boats.
NIGHT ROAD / 2018 / ACRYLIC ON PAPER / US$2100 I was fascinated by this quiet, dark road on a rainy night, the patterns of the branches and trees, the range of tones from the light blue of the sky behind the trees to the almost black of the branches. I added the texture of damp leaves and mud to the small orange patch of light from the street lamps reflecting on the dark wet road.
LEPER COLONY IN WINTER (KASHMIR) / 2013 / WATERCOLOUR / US$700. It was freezing cold winter morning when I sketched the remnants of a leper colony, still inhabited by an assortment of aging lepers and their families. These sad old buildings seemed so strangely “English” and somewhat dilapidated, yet peaceful in the frosty early morning light.
LANDSCAPE, RAJASTHAN / 2016 / WATERCOLOUR ON PAPER / US$800 We became friends with the owner of our guesthouse in Jaipur. She introduced us to local people and one day took us to her friend’s house in the desert. It was a hot day, so I sat in the shade and painted this scene “en plein air” to capture the wonderful colors and shapes of the desert flowers, fields and distant mountains.
SOLD...SILENT LAKE / 2014 / ACRYLIC ON PAPER. Painted while spending a long Autumn weekend by a lake in California. One cold morning I sat in front of the large windows of the sitting room, watching the lake with its reflections of the winter trees in the water. I sketched the curved arch of the window frame itself, which created a kind of diptych, which divided the scene into two equal parts.
THE SILENT ROOM / 2013 / WATERCOLOUR / US$840. One day I was home by myself. The house was quiet, with a pervasive sense of peace. This painting, in a muted, restricted palette of purples, pinks, creams and browns, captures the soft reflections of the light coming through the lace curtains, the shapes of the dried flowers and the old chair sitting in the corner of the room.
MOUNTAIN LAKE, SOUTH ISLAND, 2024 / Acrylic on paper / US $2800 One day my wife and I rented a car and just started driving. We had no idea of where we were heading (nor did we care). Late in the afternoon we came upon this scene. As light from the setting sun hit the mountains, the sky and snow in the distance took on a range of subdued blue-grays, tans and pinks which were in turn reflected in the still waters of the lake.
SOLD....SUNSET, SAN FRANCISCO BAY / WATERCOLOUR Painted from sketches made as I sat and watched the sun set across the bay in San Francisco, with the last evening light reflecting in the dark sand and pools of water at low tide. The first stars were coming out and across the water and lights were coming on in San Francisco, reflecting pink and purple in the clouds.