Midwinter Spin

Description

This is a detail of a much larger image. The whole painting is door sized – 70 cm wide x 190 cm high.

The ‘Killing Time’ series is based on Simon Armitage’s brilliant poem of the same title, commissioned by the Millennium Committee. The thousand line poem is divided into sections, which explore different aspects of man’s relationship with his fellow man, and the state of civilisation at the beginning of the 21st Century. The poem provided the springboard for my painterly investigations.

‘Midwinter Spin’ refers to the part of the poem when the Northern Hemisphere winter of long nights encourages us to contemplate outer space. It is trying to do the impossible: encapsulate the beauty and magnitude of the universe, which is of course an oxymoron.