Painting

Painting has always been an important part of my life, as with music. I have always been ‘seduced by colour’ and the creative side of me enjoys splashing paint around, making a mess and generally having fun! I use colour in my healing work and also around me. My Italian house featured in a magazine (Italy, the magazine for lovers of all things Italian, issue 06, Dec/Jan 2002-3 pp62-65) as an example of house restoration and transformation with the use of colour, mirrors, candles etc without changing the rustic nature of the house itself (white walls, old beams, tiled floors).

My paintings fall into several categories. As a form of meditation I paint on glass which slows me down a bit as I have to be much more precise in my choice of colour. Even here I experiment with techniques and materials – one of my favourite paintings of cats involves the liberal sprinkling of salt to make an unusual mottled effect.

One of my favourite forms of painting is in trying to capture the spirit or essence of the subject. For example, the light in an Italian sunset or the energy of my little dog Holly shown here both in a photo and in my most recent portrait of her before she died.
	‘Sunset’
To date I have only ever painted one self-portrait and that is shown here, the portrait of Shannath that appears on the cover of my book The Journey. This is how I feel I am inside and explains why I always get a shock when I look at myself in the mirror as that picture is more who I am than any photograph of my physical appearance.
	I also channel paintings, sometimes as commissions for other people. For example, the painting to the left is entitled ‘Enlightenment is within our grasp’ and was painted for my friend Graham Irwin to illustrate his on-line course ‘I was Cleopatra’s Batman’.

Sometimes with the painting comes a piece of prose or poetry as with the painting below called ‘Transcendence’.

And as the music swirls it lifts her to another space as the monuments of rhythm grow she begins to shimmer and become almost transparent. The whirlwind of sound lifts her energy and she becomes a tornado of whipping sound expressed as a wave of colour and tingling. And through the swirling mists of colour and the movement of sound all she can see is the outline of her hands outstretched as the light flows from them and she feels herself uplifted and transformed. Her hands become the anchor for this dimension as the taste and smell of various hues fill her senses and she becomes one with the sound and its essence and touches the soul of its creator.

Other examples of my work include:

	‘Move to the Light’
‘Light of the World’
	‘Out of the Depths’
‘Fairies by night’ painted with my niece Hayley Berry
	‘The souls of cats’

I also do the occasional portrait.

I am always happy to discuss commissions with individuals or groups. Please contact me.