A new year & new sea inspired paintings

Kymo, the wave - oil on panel, 40 x 40cm

As the new year begins with an air of uncertainty I’ve made the decision to throw myself into creating a new series of atmospheric paintings based on the sea.

The sea, since the earliest civilizations, has always been a place of myth and legend. Its ever-changing state is captured throughout time in folklore and sea shanties, it’s a place of unknown mysteries.

In many cultures, anthropomorphic qualities have been assigned to the sea, many of these associations provide a clear link to women and their relationship to the ebb and flow of the tides, the waxing and waning of the moon and the mysticism of nature.

In ancient Greece, the Nereides were the sea nymph daughters of Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. Living in a grotto at the bottom of the Aegean Sea, these goddesses were the protectors of sailors and fishermen. Individually they each represented a different state of the sea, from the waves and currents to the foam and sand and it’s these representations that I’m exploring in my current paintings.

The first of these works to be completed is Kymo, the Wave. Kymo was the Nereid named the "wave" who along with her sisters Amphitrite and Kymodoke, had the power to still the winds and calm the sea. The painting features a large curvaceous wave that dominates the piece, powerful in its dominance but with a softness too in it’s muted colours. It could be viewed as a metaphor that a woman, like Nature, has her own free will that cannot be contained.