I Am The Dream Of Me

Calibrating my space in middle age, I paint only white-haired women now, mostly wielding the anachronistic device of a palette, held up as a shield, a totem, a joke about male painters and genius, about painting despite the odds. That’s all this woman has, stripped back to the oversized palette and her naked self, popping pearls from her mouth, an idea fallen on the bare landscape. The palettes I paint hold symbols from my life, a piece of Lapis, some gold discs, pearls, flowers drawn from Disney films. It is these symbols, not colours, that I paint with.