My Awakenings series is about coming out of a dark time and embracing and creating and looking forward to a new future.

I hadn’t worked with black out of the tube for, oh, many years, and then one day I felt the urge to do so. Black, in one colour system, is viewed as the absence of colour; in another, it is all the colours together. Interesting!

This work began as I processed my recovery from breast cancer. Cancer has the tendency to make you rethink your life… My recovery from cancer was closely followed by another medical complication in which I narrowly escaped death—clearly is was not my time just yet.

So, I am exploring what issues created the dis-ease, as I have always believed that our physical problems are directly linked to our emotional ones. And looking at what I have learned from my experiences and how I can use this in my work—both painting and other work. As my painting always reflects my life, this is still evolving. Below is what is completed to date.