Exhibition at The Florence Biennale, Italy in October 2023

This is The Hero, The Dreamer who dissolves into the DreamTime through connecting into The City Of Angels as though they were among the Heavenly Clouds. The technique of repetitive cursive writing is a homage to one of my favourite artists, Cy Twombly, as I repeatedly wrote the phrase "City Of Angels” over and over and over again in ink and then painted over areas with acrylic paint to create a feeling that this was a vision in the clouds with The Hero’s face, predominantly his jawline and nose, just merging into the vision. The Dreamer references Joseph, who has 6x dreams in Genesis 37: "Here comes The Dreamer. Let us slay him and see what becomes of his dreams“. Joseph eventually becomes second in command to Egypt's Pharaoh, and I have referenced a Pharaoh in Eros: A Revolution Of Love which is the 7th painting in this sequence of 8x paintings.

The title of this painting refers to a song by The Soft Machine from 1968, which is the year of my birth. The Dreamer is fully immersed in The DreamTime and is in a vision state symbolic of Eros of love, lust, and desire by observing the apparition of a beautiful female entity, Aphrodite, the Goddess of sexual love, which leads to procreation.” Aphrodite emerges from 2x snake-like entities that represent the two serpents coiling around each other, which is an ancient symbol known to many mythologies around the world as 'the cosmic serpent', and which is very recognisable as the double helix pattern of DNA or a symbol of creation. Love really does make sweet music, the most beautiful feeling in life, and it is the most powerful power as “Love Conquers All..."

I have always loved Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture "Man Walking Under The Rain,' so I transposed this title to support the painting of my hero, who is a "Man Walking Under The Dream Time “ which, as he is in the realm of dreams, all sorts of organic and biomorphic forms start to appear, including the ancient spiral of life arising from intertwining serpents. I love chiaroscuro paintings in black and white to contrast light and dark, which represent day and night or life and death, or good and evil. Here The Man is walking through his Dreamtime experience and resisting temptations that arise along his journey.

In Ancient Egypt The Pharaoh King was associated with many specific deities. He was identified directly with Horus, who represented Kingship itself and was seen as a protector of the Pharaoh, and he was seen as the son of Ra who was portrayed as a falcon. Ra, who is “Horus of the Two Horizons”. In this painting, I have merged the two deities Horus and Ra into the same entity, as Horus-Ra or Ra-Horakhty, as he came to be known. Every day, Horus-Ra travels across the sky on his solar barge, carrying The Sun, to light the sky. When The Sun sets at twilight, Horus-Ra then goes through The Akhet or The Star Gate into The Duat, which is The Egyptian Underworld or The Pathway of The Stars. The 12x stars on the Star Gate represent the 12 arenas of The Duat as well as the 12x hours of The Night. Horus-Ra has to spend 1 hour in each of the 12 arenas of the Duat, where he either entertains his friends with food and drinks or he has to slay his enemies, from which he emerges in the morning to carry The Sun across the sky to light the day and the sky again, and this journey process of day into night into day into night again carries on eternally. This is truly a Hero’s Journey.

I love the ever-evolving images in The DreamTime, and here I have a series of black and white chiaroscuro metamorphosing shapes that include The Hero’s face, the ubiquitous serpent, dancing nymphs, a spider, a dove, and a rhino’s head, amongst other suggested forms and creatures. Life is a journey of continual metamorphosis and evolvement, a metamorphosing dream in itself. What other creatures can you see in this painting...?

The title of this painting comes from Neil Harrison’s song ”Windmills of Your Mind “ made famous by one of my favourite films, “The Thomas Crown Affair” which was released in 1968, the year of my birth. "Pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song half-remembered names and faces, but to whom do they belong? When you knew that it was over, you were suddenly aware. That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair! Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel As the images unwind, like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind…” The windmill can symbolise transformation, sustenance, and achieving one's potential. The white windmills serve as a symbol of spiritual purity, whilst their quiet rotations represent a peaceful state of being that is powered by an invisible force being air, which is also a representative of ‘Spirit ‘. Having three windmills structured in a limitless dream sequence, I wanted this to represent a symbolic Trinity which could include The Father, The Mother and The Child or The Father, The Son And The Holy Spirit. Either way,The Windmill becomes a visual metaphor for creation and the endless rotations of ongoing life, which is perfectly encapsulated by Robert Frost. " In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life; it goes on..."

In a small light green bubble in the centre of this painting is my Hero, The Dreamer who is calling in Eros to create 'A Revolution Of Love'. Here he is in The DreamTime. Above The Dreamer, there is a bow, marked in pencil into the paint, which is firing an arrow at the heart to the right of the painting. At the lower left there is a Pharaoh's head to symbolise the mythical dreamer from antiquity, and behind his head is a spiral form to represent our involvement in life. Above The Pharaoh, there is a sailing ship to symbolise the journey of the Hero being brought to a mythical, highly coloured DreamLand where the primary purpose is to connect to the source of life, which is Love. To the upper left are the eyes of Eros or Cupid , observing the scene to see if the arrow of The Dreamer connects into The Love. The water green colour of The Dreamer’s bubble is continued into the colour of the sky in the 1st painting, City Of Angels' and also the 2nd painting, 'Love Makes Sweet Music' where it used in The Dreamer’s brain and in the emerging female figure of Aphrodite being created by the 2x serpent entities to create a synchronising continuity throughout the paintings.

This title is taken from an Erik Rittenberry poem, "To live is to Be Madly alive." The last stanza of this amazing poem is... 'To be alive is to plunge into the medieval depths and recapture that authentic LIGHT of your own BEING, to unmask your divine madness and dance once again with unimaginable rapture in the vast muck-heap of this fallen world.’ I was trying to capture a multitude of shapes, including pyramids and pyramidical forms, to create 3-dimensional imagery appearing out of a 2-dimensional medium. However much I look at this painting, I see new shapes, and it reminds me of a quote by the Chinese philosopher Confucius, who wisely said, “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one.” To Live Is To Be Alive…