November 24, 2016-December 24, 2016

The title of Nika Fontaineâ€s solo exhibition at Joyce Yahouda Gallery was called Heimat. The word Heimat apparently cannot be translated exactly, however it loosely means “homeland” in German. I believe that Fontaine is using the word in its purest sense, not suggesting any kind of national pride. Through the title she suggests a spiritual homeland, in which the true home of the soul is not this plane, but another beyond, and her art explores this theme. The works in this show range from boxy glitter Rothkoesque canvases, to paintings which burst with movement and colour, to kitschy creations in velvet and tassels.

Nika Fontaine is a multidisciplinary artist who is first and foremost a painter, although she is also so diverse in her output as to range from making music, designing gloriously glam coffins and performing in drag. Fontaineâ€s paintings, in general and in this exhibition are primarily in glitter on canvas, but she has of late been returning to purely painted works, as can be seen on her Instagram. Montreal born, Berlin-based, Fontaine is a French-Canadian transgender woman, but does not consider herself to be a transgender artist, as her works explore other themes mostly spiritual in origin, dealing frequently with death, astral experiences and energy, but they are also largely concerned with style, aesthetics and fun.  Fontaine recounts that she gained New Age influences from her mother and aunt, which have informed her work for many years now. There are elements of craft, of little girl art, of the ubiquitous glitter stickers of the 80s, of fabric and play and dress-up. However, these works carry a distinctly adult, evolved and a sometimes dark or sinister contemporary edge. Ever since losing her father at a young age, Nika Fontaine has had a fascination with death. Combined with her female relatives†interest in spirituality, this clearly created a powerfully imaginative, spiritual and feminine environment to grow up in, one that nurtured her to become the artist she is today.

A painter of increasing international renown, Fontaine was a finalist in the RBC painting competition for 2016, as well as one the honorable mentions for the prize. It was one of her Schnell Schnell paintings—the series heavily featured in this solo exhibition—that garnered her this recognition. The most successful paintings in this show, in my opinion, are many of these Schnell Schnell paintings (“quickly quickly” in German) which Fontaine calls her Accelerators. The ones that resemble small, glittering Rothkos feel boxed in, static, almost trapped and claustrophobic, though still containing visual delights and harmony. Fontaine told me that those with greater movement were painted more recently, and they are the ones I found more profoundly moving and hypnotic. It is clear that Fontaine wishes the viewer to experience an acceleration of consciousness, energy and happiness while enjoying her work, and this is indeed a successful effect, depending on the openness of the viewer. It is possible to experience a distinct sense of mirroring in your own body and sense the feelings portrayed on the canvas through colour, the reflections of light upon the glitter and the sense of surging upward. There is a sense of movement of energy, of colourful play through a body, which could be an etheric body or an astral one. They have a very human feel, a sense of embodiment as well as freedom from such a state. The sense of being more than one is in the earthly sense. These paintings often have the shape of a body, of a face, sometimes of breasts or eyes. Their glittering energy seems to travel upward, like the flush of excitement or emotion, the rush of thought or the movement of kundalini through the chakras. They also seem to express desire and pleasure at the same time, which is a rare feat to accomplish so effectively in an abstract work. These Schnell Schnell paintings do seem to have a cross-over to her Astral Bodies series, which are about beings she encounters after putting herself into a trance, then painting. Boundaries are not as rigid as we imagine, especially in creative endeavours. The Accelerators also include paintings I would call space paintings, which seem to be directly inspired by the glittering night sky, and seem less about a body or being, and more about awe and freedom. I would love to see her abstract works, these space canvases in particular, painted quite large to increase their sense of overwhelming peace and wonder.

Nika Fontaine has said that her interest in kitsch materials comes mainly from aesthetic preference.  She is not afraid to be decorative. This is an artist skilled in blending high and low-brow art; her use of materials such as velvet and tasseled curtains would send an artist less bold  running in shame. There is a good sense of humour, both about the role of the artist and about herself, which successfully lightens the mood of work that many could find “woo-woo” or taking herself too seriously.  Theyâ€re fun, light-hearted, pretty and just serious enough. The kitsch works are less interesting to me personally, but they add some humour and playfulness to a show that would otherwise be too ponderous for many. The most effective of these was the most ironic, a purple glowing glitter planet painted on the notorious black velvet, titled Zeta Pupis. Somehow the black seemed as black as Anish Kapoorâ€s vantablack. It is the black of the void, black as a black hole and deeply hypnotic. The center of the purple planet was lighter than the outer edge of the sphere, giving it a dimensional feel. The edge was trimmed in velvet, and even the most serious connoisseur could hardly mind, as the piece was so effectively mesmerizing. It also could be associated with a mandala, or an energy-being centred in a very peaceful place, hovering over the void.

Fontaineâ€s large, chaotic, representational glitter-sticker tableaux were among the most striking. They allowed long examination and enjoyment, and sparked many conversations amongst visitors. More figurative than her other works, they were very engaging, drawing the eye to riddle out the chaos to find in the glittery nebula of satana ye te boco: a devilâ€s mask with a long tongue protruding like Hindu images of the goddess Kali, electric green space-vomit emitted from a jar or urn, a long, rope-tongued floating serpent, a green and black scarab beetle, a black sign of clubs, flames one might see on a childâ€s toy race car and other less easily decipherable symbols. The most perplexing and intriguing of the less easily distinguished symbols was a somehow humanoid tuber portrayed in ochre glitter. It seemed root-like as well as intestinal, but its meaning was quite evasive. American Delight features a barber pole, another gut-tuber, a banana split, a viridian ET-like creature, an electric blue scorpion, musical notes, flames and a sword, among other lesser symbols and signs. The meaning seems less important than the primordial soup of imagery which comes from a frenetic imagination. These feel like dream-clutter or the jumble of images one encounters while attempting to still the mind in meditation.

While it feels a bit unfair to keep returning to Rothko as that influence is only one part of Nika Fontaineâ€s work, Rothko’s paintings, energetically devoid almost in their Zen emptiness, feel like a place or a mood, while hers feel much more human and joyful. Their presence, their boundaries, the thrust of their desire, their limitations and their expansive joy rises and ascends, and for me, they are at the core of the success of this exhibition.  Her Heimat is the homeland of the heart.

Tenir des Murs was a group exhibition at Joyce Yahouda Gallery, literally translated as “to hold up the walls”, a French expression meaning “hang around”. The paintings in the group exhibition were placed on the floor, in effect holding up the walls, allowing a different vantage point from which to view them. I found it a refreshingly casual approach, giving the experience the feel of a studio visit, allowing the viewer to hang around the artwork and indulge in leisurely visual pleasures.

Presented this way, but in their own wing of the gallery as a solo, were four summer night-lush 2015 works making up Benjamin Kleinâ€s Exhibition, from what the artist calls his “Bugs” series, a world he created as part of his MFA thesis exhibition at the University of Guelph that was later shown in his show Generator in Montreal. The word “generate” is still very relevant here.

Generate: “To bring into existence, cause to be, produce. To create by a vital or natural process. To reproduce, procreate.”

In these four never-before exhibited works, we see the characters and features Klein has been working with for years, a plethora of bioluminescent life, of ladybugs, snails, fluorescent planets, spiders and glowing orbs all dwelling within nocturnal landscapes where the hinterland and the garden or park meet. Vital and natural are two very apt words to describe these paintings.  The work is vital to the artist, and their existence is vital. The natural process of painting, highlighted in expressive brushwork which clearly shows the hand of the artist, is the perfect medium for such scenes. Benjamin Klein is an artist who welcomes a variety of interpretations to his work. My interpretations are mine alone, perhaps, and I have only been face to face with six of his paintings, but they were enough to make me stand back and almost gasp at their dark beauty and power upon first entering the room they were displayed in. Because of their size, energy, luminosity, the subtlety of their colour variations and the sensitivity of their brushwork, these are works that must be seen in person to be fully appreciated. Something about seeing his works face à face gives insight into what the paintings tell you about yourself, but more insight is perhaps afforded from keeping an open mind to the myriad possibilities which can shift from day to day with your perception.

Francis Bacon said “the job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery”, and Klein does his job exceptionally well. Not only does he create mystery, his paintings evoke the magic and imaginative force of childhood, no mean feat in a world of contemporary art which sometimes seems to extol irony and that which can be comprehended by the intellect alone above all.  In my opinion, it is also an especially brave and laudable approach for a male painter working in an expressive style, an inheritor of the legacy of de Kooning, Bacon, Soutine and so on. In this body of work there is also a relationship to the work of Van Gogh, Chagall, certain paintings by Matisse, and, of course, our contemporary masters who work with playfully serious painterly force, Dana Schutz and Allison Schulnik to consider, among others, but Kleinâ€s painterly signature is unique. The notion of lila—Sanskrit for play—comes to my mind with his work. Lila is a game with a serious edge in which the entire universe is generated by the creative play of the divine.

The fact that he chooses to paint in what at first glance seems to be in an utterly direct, honest and almost naïve manner, in actuality is something informed, considered, layered, subtle and skillful. It also appears to reflect a depth of philosophy, a balance of male and female principles within, and a consciousness that art speaks to us on an elemental level as well as a mental. The vast majority of artists who paint in an expressive, figurative way do so because they are engaged with the ability of paint to convey emotion as well as thought through subject and form, and Klein is no exception. This style and these choices are in no way inferior to other ways of making art, yet they continue to be disparaged as somehow lesser than other ways of making.

Why ladybugs?  Klein tells the story of the genesis of the ladybug theme, how he encountered what he calls a ladybug graveyard in his studio, which he found “oddly compelling and beautiful, memorable and uncanny”. Ladybugs, though associated with luck and the innocence of childhood, viewed so largely and painted so boldly make the viewer feel like one of them, part of their story. It also causes their colour to be in the foreground of our perception. Red and black, primal colours, often signify blood and the deepest shadows. Thus, they bear a paradox in their very form, making them appropriate vehicles of story and meaning. The deceased ladybugs are given new life in paint by Klein, reanimated through colour and energy as they play out their psychodramas and intrigues. The stories become almost archetypal when you place yourself in the ambiguous positions of the snail, the spider, the ladybug or the firefly.

The first piece I encountered was Different Roads. All of these paintings are large, and first I was struck by the overwhelming hot and pure cadmium red of the ladybugs, alternately perceived to be drowning in a disintegrating landscape and emerging from the earth under a beautifully rendered deep blue sky exquisitely subtle yet expressive, looming darkly above softly detailed grass twinkling with fireflies. Ladybugs move through a sea of grass, almost as if they are forming out of it, numinous. Black forms in the background echo the shapes of the insects. What are the different roads? Perhaps the title refers to the limen, the borderland where one must choose the wild or the garden, or elsewise it could suggest the varied paths we walk in life portrayed via the endlessly travelling and busy insects, or the interspecies differences between the lone snail and the myriad ladybugs in the foreground.  These bugs do seem to be newly generated, in a state of prolific, joyful procreation, re-animated through colour and movement, vibrating with energy. We see the secret lives of creatures practically unknown to us, living deep within what could be a city park at night.

Allowed to hum on a wall of its own is All Through the Night, the macrocosm to the ladybug microcosm. My first thought was that the title was borrowed from the familiar lullaby, but Klein recalls the 80s love song of the same title by Cyndi Lauper. Over a hot pink dripping ground, jubilant brushstrokes tangle with cadmium yellows, burning sun oranges, buzzing ultramarine and Prussian blues that are exceptionally hard to do justice to in a photograph. When I look at the cosmos depicted, I think of artist as creator, and the pure joy of the potential to depict all things from the microcosm to the macrocosm, insects to galaxies.  Is it a world before humans? Klein suggests it could be the sky above the ladybug world.  Of the four works shown here, this one is the most abstract. It is a part of our solar system, but not, an alternate Saturn surrounded by quantum suggestions of form in paint.  It is like the famous experiment in which tiny bits of matter—paint—are shot at a screen—canvas—and quantum waves of potential paths, when watched by the viewer, coalesce into specific form. Personally, I saw cellular structures, honeycomb, male genitalia, and a smiley face. Klein says: “Iâ€ve always found it impossible to paint something that isnâ€t a representation, even in the cases of virtually abstract images, thereâ€s always a fusion of subject and form.” In this world devoid of humans, consciousness and feeling are nevertheless ubiquitous, mirrored in the insect exploits in their occult world. The handling of paint and the subject matter show the balance of control and abandon, order and chaos, a theme echoed in the garden/woodland relationship throughout the Bugs series. The title suggests what transpires in the sky while we are in bed.  I canâ€t help but picture a cosmic world above lovers and return to the quantum theme, envisioning in this, exploding stars dying yet shining and forming new patterns in direct relation to their embrace.

In Sweeter than Ever, a dream viewed through the looking glass, a pink luminous snail with a blue shell and a beneficent mien is surrounded by floral abundance, dancing firefly-stars and a mysterious glow which comes from under a hill at the waterâ€s edge. Reflected in the water in the place where we ought to see the reflection of the snail, instead we spy the distorted reflection of a blue spider, another recurrent player in Kleinâ€s Bugs series. Are they lovers? Do they long for each other? Or is it an approaching menace, hovering over the snail and about to descend, a watery warning?  This is the most enigmatic piece in the exhibition. There seem to be allusions to love or life being sweet, with the blooming flowers, inner glow and aqueous reflection. Love and life are never completely safe, even at times of peak happiness, there is always a danger of loss or change.

The last painting was Awake at Dawn, which must depict very early morning when blue light is cast all around, because the sky is primarily dark, yet, the overall feel is of a day-glo Van Gogh landscape. The orbs which I normally interpret as fireflies, here I read as stars which twinkle through the atmosphere in variegated colours, seemingly self-determined in their freedom to float where they will.  A soft, verdant mushroom cloud of foliage is supported or projected by the shaft of a radioactive-looking yellow trunk.  Glowing energy and power push from under the earth. Blades of glass shine with tiny lights among the ladybugs, who seem to be travelling through a swamp of liquid green alongside stars; playing with perspective and space is a recurrent technique of Kleinâ€s which helps to bring us a dreamlike state of perception.

Joseph Bueys said: “Imagination, inspiration and longing all lead people to sense that these other levels also play a part in understanding.” Benjamin Kleinâ€s paintings have long been solely crafted from his imagination and hand, and the role of imagination is especially strong in these evocative paintings. They bring to mind the magic of childhood, when in every one of us, creativity is as natural as breathing and for many, existence is fraught with deep meaning unfathomable by the conscious mind. It is a time closer to the origin of life and consciousness, a time close to the heart of many an artist. The force of childhood—that crucial time of our emergence into this world—weighs on all of us for good and ill, and we would do well to recall what truly nourishes the heart. It is interesting that the meaning of these works is a mystery even to the artist, their symbolism shifts and is uncertain, fluid. These paintings function as dreams do, but their world is a dream which can be collectively shared.

Real Men Donâ€t Look at Explosions

Sebastien Worsnip is exhibiting his strong new series of paintings at Joyce Yahouda Gallery this June and July.  These works are similar to Worsnip’s usual modus operandi, with a twist–they deal with spectacle in a quantum way, presenting us with visual meditations on time and paradox. These highly-layered, complex abstractions are generously painted, the viewer is likely to wish to revisit them again and again and look for a long time.

Kara Williams: Why did you choose explosions for the theme of this exhibition?

Sebastien Worsnip: It was a convergence of several things. I think Iâ€ve always worked with time, even though when I was doing more landscapes there was always the idea of time. I always liked the idea of even when I was doing abstract work you could sense when time was passing. It came together. There was a time when things were a little difficult for me, and I was thinking about stability and instability, and my daughter showed me this video “Cool Guys Donâ€t Look at Explosions” and it was that coincidence, a flash in my head, what if you walked into a room and every painting was exploding? All around you things were disintegrating and falling apart or moving. I started with straight up explosions, Hollywood movie things, sketching these things.

KW: Did you work from a still frame from a video, the film itself or from your memory of those movies?

SW: I was looking up images of explosions and came across natural disasters, Burning Man even, anything spectacular, but very quickly I realized it wasnâ€t that interesting to me to represent that, it was just interesting to sketch, what was more interesting was to have that feeling. I think thatâ€s even what Iâ€ve always done with landscapes, because I prefer the feeling of something. Where I can transmit that in a more oblique way where it is more open, where the story is not necessarily told, there is an openness to interpretation, in way an ambiguity. It became much more about these structures deconstructing then maybe coming together again. The last two paintings were the most explosive that I did, Skyfall and Piège de Crystal.

KW: Did you use a masking liquid on some of your pieces? Such as Les traces qui restent?

SW: I used a pouring medium and a tube that was flattened out on a turkey baster, so I could draw long lines like that. I was trying to find a way to draw on the painting and originally I hadnâ€t thought of doing those kind of lines, I made the turkey baster to do like you do with a bamboo stick, like Van Goghâ€s kind of drawing, that nervous line. Thatâ€s what I was trying to get.

KW: It looks like you have a natural facility with line.

SW: I like it. I like the contour. I was seeing if I could get the energy of a small sketch, that immediate energy. Iâ€m still working on that. The movement is so different.

KW: I admire that since my line is so different from yours.

SW: It actually that has to do with the tool, you have to hold it with two hands, and my whole body is moving, it becomes very linear and sinuous.

KW: While weâ€re talking about line, would you say that your education in industrial design informed the way you make art?

SW: Yes, yes and no. I finished school as a sculptor and painter. I worked as a prop maker and set painter, a lot like Peter Doig. I stopped sculpting and started painting because I was doing all my sculpture commercially. I started to not want to do it, it didnâ€t feel authentic. When I would go see installation shows, I could feel all the fussiness behind it, and it drove me crazy. It made me think of all the stuff I was doing professionally, and it turned me off sculpture, except really raw, raw sculpture.  I think that when I paint now I look at it a lot of times as a sculptural thing. Iâ€m trying to imagine the space sculpturally in my head and try to work it. Thatâ€s why I like the detail so much of having the thick and the thin of the paint work. On the one hand you have this space that you can imagine projecting yourself into, but at the same time theyâ€re so big and textured, I want people to be aware that it is an illusion, paint on canvas. I like that tactile feeling. Working with the masks and stuff is a lot about that. Iâ€ll mask off one area, itâ€s a bit like surgery. How can that area be as interesting as it can possibly be? That one little spot that Iâ€m working on it has to be as dynamic as it could be.

KW: How much planning goes into making a piece?

SW: Thereâ€s a lot more planning now than there used to be. On the one hand some of the paintings in this show were really well planned out with sketching and photoshopped and as I work I  continuously photoshop between what Iâ€m working and what Iâ€m trying to get to. So I have this photoshop sketch of what Iâ€m trying to get to and what Iâ€m working with. So some of the more layered ones were definitely like that because I had to plan the layers I wanted to get to.

KW: Roughly how many layers would you say do you make in the average painting in this exhibition? How many times do you go in?

SW: I would say about six. Roughly the big layers.

KW: We spoke at your opening about the unusual palette, the contrast between the explosive content and the softness of your colours. Do you want to talk about your use of colour in this series?

SW: People comment that the work is very soft and pastel and meditative. For example, one of them, All Sunshine and Rainbows, is using very manga colours. I used a fluorescent pink and phthalo green as a base. Theyâ€re very violent colours to start off with but they cancel themselves out, which I find fascinating. As youâ€re working with them, they become grey. In this show, I went back to some more earthy colours. With this other series I wanted to work with colours that are not natural. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. How can I make something interesting with colours that I find absolutely garish? Thatâ€s where the beauty comes in. To start off from a point that is difficult for me and I try to get myself out of it. Now I changed my work so I canâ€t go over it so much, but when I used to paint over things, a lot of times at the end of the day I would mix up whatever was on my palette and just randomly put it on the painting to spook myself the next day.

KW: What is the most engaging or satisfying part of painting for you? What excites you the most?

SW: Itâ€s really basic but creating something out of nothing. Creating this world that almost seems real but you know it isnâ€t. Still to me, especially with abstract stuff, I wonder, why is this interesting? Why is this abstract space or thing interesting? I canâ€t even define it. Iâ€ll leave sketches and scribbles around my studio and people will come in and be like, that scribble is really interesting. And Iâ€ll be like, I know and I donâ€t know why. Why is that interesting? Doing this process now where Iâ€ll hide things and then paint on them and take it off, thatâ€s really exciting. When I take off the masks, all of the sudden POW, itâ€s just there, living with everything you did before. You had an idea of what it would look like but you didnâ€t really know.

KW: Like an explosion on the canvas.

SW: Like a shock. My wife and kids sometimes will be at the studio and theyâ€ll be like, can we do it can we do it? Itâ€s fun. Youâ€re discovering this stuff underneath. Itâ€s very similar to when you develop black and white photography when it starts to come up. My mother was a commercial photographer and I spent a lot of my early life in darkrooms. It has that same feeling, she just let me play with stuff.

KW: Iâ€d like to hear more about your thoughts on abstract art.

SW: I sometimes think of doing more figurative things, although in a way, I think right now the abstract stuff Iâ€m doing has structures that are figurative in a way because theyâ€re very defined, and then Iâ€ll mess with them. Theyâ€re not referring to something thatâ€s absolutely there. I like the idea of having it open. Of letting someone be able to dream with it. Itâ€s kind of meditative too. Iâ€m a big fan of Rothko, that kind of experience of painting where you sit in front of it and let it wash over you, although mine are more dramatic. I used to share a studio with an older painter who did minimalist work and he used to tell me, youâ€re very dramatic. There is an openness in suggesting something where somebody can bring their own experience to it. It always surprises me when someone describes to me their experience of my work, how close it comes to my intention.

I donâ€t look for meaning very deeply. When I go see work, even very figurative work, Iâ€m not looking for symbols or meaning, thatâ€s not the way my brain works. I tend to look at it more visually and look for poetry in it. Iâ€ve seen people analyze something and look for links and meanings and I realize Iâ€m not doing that at all. Itâ€s not my go-to way of being. Itâ€s different ways of thinking, different ways of being. I think I very much follow a tradition of looking. Of being more visual, more tactile. Thatâ€s where my interests have always been. Itâ€s a different way of communicating. Iâ€m definitely communicating something with what Iâ€m doing itâ€s just not something Iâ€m able to put into words.

KW: Thatâ€s why you put it into paint.

SW: Thatâ€s funny because I teach, and I sometimes have a hard time describing what it is, but I have an easier time describing someone elseâ€s words than my own.

KW: What are some of your other influences? You mentioned Rothko.

SW: I was really a fan of Kirkeby, but at one point I stopped looking too much at the work because it was blocking me, my work was too close. This was earlier on. Heâ€s a Dutch painter. I look at work but I try not to look at it too much.

KW: Not to the level of being influenced.

SW: Yeah. It does scare me. With Kirkeby I found if I did a line, I was like, thatâ€s like a line in his painting. Especially with abstract stuff it can come so close to what youâ€re doing, youâ€re like, oh God. One of the influences of this series was Peter Eisenmen. Heâ€s not a painter, heâ€s an architect, his emphasis is on structures, so I really drew on his structures.  Digital architecture is part of my teaching, you were asking how design fits in here. A lot of digital architecture is about spaces, I find it interesting that the spaces that are done digitally are very cold, they donâ€t have much humanness to it, and when I draw them they become more human, more organic. So Iâ€ll take that as a starting point for the sketches and sometimes even incorporate it. Thatâ€s the skeleton on which everything is built. I might keep doing that because it is efficient. The basic structure is there.

KW: Do you find that sometimes paintings get away from you? Sometimes go in other directions? You mentioned you do a lot of planning and Photoshop, with many layers and stages. Do you find they go their own way sometimes?

SW: Yeah, the other thing Iâ€ll do is Iâ€ll always start two paintings, sometimes three. Different sizes, big, small, little.  The medium one is almost as big as the one Iâ€m working on so Iâ€ll do all the stuff Iâ€m scared to do on that.  A couple of the paintings that were in the show were those ones. Theyâ€re sometimes much fresher.  I was having a really hard time producing work, and I thought this was a way I could increase production and not be scared.

KW: What is the most difficult part of the process of artmaking for you?

SW: I would say that it is what makes it interesting too…the fear of not knowing exactly where youâ€re going. When I start it I have an idea and its only by working through it that = it starts to define itself and to make sense, but when you first start it you donâ€t know where youâ€re going with it and youâ€re not even sure if itâ€s going to be any good, so there is self-doubt.  The uncertainty that youâ€ll even have enough work for a show in the time given.  Three-quarters of the way through the year I had a couple of paintings that I thought were quite good and quite pertinent for the show and then I relaxed. Usually I donâ€t until the show opens but I felt itâ€s okay, I have something here.

KW: A couple of your pieces, After the Rain and Loverâ€s Leap donâ€t seem to be of explosions in the literal Hollywood way. They also feature orbs floating in the sky or water. Tell me about them if you wish.

SW: That was a little off-topic but I liked them so I put them in.

KW: I was just wondering how they fit in with the idea of explosions or time.

SW: I fear saying something, they mean something to me, Iâ€ll tell you and youâ€ll tell me if it breaks the painting for you or not. To me, it is a waterfall, and the bubbles are like all the energy of that waterfall going back up, like the little bubbles on a river.  I thought they were really nice like that, all the colourful bubbles. I just like that painting and I wanted to put it in. Itâ€s kind of a landscapey with a quirky element to it, and I would possibly like to do more with that kind of work.

KW: Is that something youâ€re thinking of doing next?

SW: Yeah weâ€re going off to France in a few weeks, what I was thinking Iâ€ll taking my camera and look at a lot of landscape paintings and seeing if I can rework them.   Even in my own paintings I will sample a part of it to work on the next one. I will take my camera really close and find a detail and sample it.