Co-creating With The Sea
There's a particular kind of letting go that only happens at the water's edge.
I'd always painted of the sea, its colour, its feeling, what it means to me. But one day I wanted the sea to paint with me. So I took the work to the shore. Immersed it in the ocean. Let the water move through the ink in its own way, in its own time.
What surprised me was how much I had to release. Not just control of the outcome but the idea that I knew how it should look at all. The ocean doesn't negotiate. It simply does what it does. And in that, something opened.
I found a freedom in the process I hadn't touched before. The work became something between us, part mine, part the sea's. Neither of us entirely in charge.
Somewhere in that I recognised myself. Wild and free and not entirely knowable. The same as the ocean all along.
Photographed at Drummonds Cove Beach, Western Australia.
