I rely on recognition and have very few tricks. It's no careful gardening
- more like a battlefield or tumbling through a hedge. What happened
in this painting was a rollercoaster ride. Over the months it moved
and evolved.
Rollercoast
is founded on a part of Cornwall that I know - a stretch of coast
between Portreath and Godrevy. It's an image from my life; a walkabout
- quietly endless, difficult and surprising.
Portreath
is an open bay with a round hill and long pier. It's slate, north
facing, steep, shady and very dark. The coast is flat - like you could
roll marbles on it - but the road twists and turns. As you reach Godrevy
you turn right around onto the south-facing coast of St Ives Bay.
However,
I'm using landscape here as a device to enclose myth: Asclepius, born
out of the flames of a funeral pyre.