Witches Pool – Water Lilies, Thursley

This painting (I have called it Witches Pool) is of water lilies I found in Thursley, Surrey. It is a larger painting that deserves a reasonable space. It took a long time to paint and the price reflects this. I have tried to convey not just the obvious elements of light and shade but something of the ecstatic experience that can come from meditating or reflecting (a word chosen consciously) on the natural world.

This may be difficult to convey, but painting is a task that helps one to see hidden depths. So, as I painted, I began to see other forms. A lily pad and the reflection of leaves and branches became a jellyfish. Colours that were not ‘actually’ there mysteriously appeared. The more that I painted each section, the more I realised that nature’s forms repeat themselves in unexpected places. I do not think that our ancestors would have been surprised at this. In fact, they would be shaking their heads at our blindness.

My fanciful title of Witches Pool indicates that the piece is about more than just a painting of waterlilies, it is a painting that channels witchcraft, old lore, hidden truth. It is a painting that I am proud of – but whatever success I had was the outcome of the love and the attention I gave to it, not of any ‘skill’ or ‘talent’.

This painting was longlisted for Jackson’s Painting Prize 2020 and was one of two winning paintings in the Cambridge Invitational Art Contest and Exhibition 2021.

If you like this painting you might also enjoy some of my smaller water lily paintings. Their moods are quite different.