Way over yonder continues on from Going out west, painting places from my imagination often inspired by the kind of music and musicians that I find fascinating, early Bluegrass, folk & Appalation music, and musicians like Charlie Parr, Doc Bloggs and Gillian Welch.

I often used lyrics from songs, as titles, to help convey my nostalgic connection to time and place, within the visual narrative of a painting—sometimes this coincides with the song narrative, sometimes its just more poetic and apt. For instance, What The sun said (John Fahey), is an instrumental piece, and it is my own intuitive sensibility informing the colours, mood and language. The goat in the painting understands what the sun said, in unspoken words.

Another example is the title Ben Dewberry’s Final run (Jimmie Rogers), a ballad of its time (1920’s American folksong) which tells the story of a brave, ill-fated train driver’s calamitous last run, it has a very playful, joyous and almost comical quality, that I love.

I’ve been using more vivid tactile paint surfaces and saturated colour harmonies in this series, that I hope resonates a seductive sense of stillness and timeless tranquillity, to escape the darkness in the current world we find ourselves in today.