Clear bright spring morning, Oriental Bay, Wellington

2008-2010

oil on canvas

915 x 1675 mm

$4,600

The title of this painting comes from Leonard Cohen and from Sandro Botticelli’s La Primavera, Allegory of Spring. The sentiment of the work is the window of hope of the first brilliant spring day, after a winter of news that didn’t want to end. Then a day sparkling so bright, that it confused the senses into seeing visions.

I’d just been to Italy and the connection made with the life and works of the painting masters was profound. I’ve tried to apply some of what I learnt from seeing the power of those works first-hand to capture the intensity of that piercing white light, bouncing, shimmering  and scattering between the still harbour and the clouds. The Roman fountain of Neptune hovers like a mirage, in between image and imagination. His battle with the writhing octopus, like our own preoccupation with the curling tentacles of another threat in our midst.