Blaze

Blaze 2020
Oil on canvas, 2020
170 × 170 cm (67 × 67 in)

Living beside the sea near Dover, I watch the sun rise over the Goodwin Sands. During the lockdowns I began painting small en plein air studies on postcards, exploring the changing light, weather and atmosphere of the Kent coast. This painting grew directly from those observations, expanding their energy and immediacy onto a monumental scale.

My intention was to create an abstract evocation of the sea at dawn, where light erupts across the horizon and transforms the landscape. The sweeping gestures and luminous colour suggest both the immense force of nature and the emotional intensity of that extraordinary period.

Only four days after beginning the painting I developed Covid-19. Looking back, I realised I had almost certainly been infected while I was working. Although conceived as a celebration of light and landscape, the finished work came to embody something more complex. There is a sense of unseen forces gathering beneath the surface, making the painting feel unexpectedly prophetic.

The experience changed my perception in subtle ways. For a time, colour appeared more vivid and the world seemed astonishingly sharp. Whether this was physical, psychological or both, I cannot say. What I do know is that this painting marked a turning point. It opened a new direction in my work, one in which observation and subconscious experience became inseparable.

© Stephanie Fuller (Burns)