This painting was finished a few years ago. I did not begin with either a subject or an image in mind.  I had an ’empty’ mind as I began making random marks with charcoal on a blank canvas. This is the way I worked for a long period of my painting practice. It is typical of the work I was doing at that time (as opposed to the more recent period). It is part of what entrances me about being a painter: making abstract and random marks, ‘seeing’ an image; enhancing the image to be (somewhat) more legible, so that then the entire painting evolves, develops, grows from there. Spontaneity is important to me – as well as developing a painting which includes hints and glances (not descriptive details) of people and their moods and relationships.

In this painting there is a figure apparently in bed and another who is an on-looker. I love the feeling that the visitor is interacting in some positive way with the figure in bed…As I finished the painting I was hoping that people who saw the painting would feel this aspect of empathy or loving care. There are not many hints, but one is the postures of the two figures, another is that one can see their eyes seemingly connecting to each other.  My feeling is that it is a painting about compassion and caring. In several ways it was a struggle for me to get to that point: the overall aspect is abstract, so how to focus on details that would result in this feeling; how to give hints of the interation without including distracting particular details. I would love to hear your opinions…