New Zealand series I

1992
oil on canvas, 71 x 71 cm
(Currently in Madrid, Spain)

I painted this having recently returned from a visit to Israel and Egypt and I'd just started a Fine Art degree at the then Middlesex Polytechnic. The bright clear colours of Egypt took me back to the colours of New Zealand. I began work on a series of small oil paintings on paper and alongside these I did paintings on canvases 71 x 71 cm. I was still using figures from which to structure my paintings. In this series I used the simple koru form as in the earlier work "koru". As the series progressed the koru form articulating the space became less and less obvious and the movement of the paint gradually took over.