To keep this (Original, Signed and Framed)

Original Watercolour

75cm x 56cm (unframed)

This is the first of a few new paintings I hope to produce for an upcoming exhibition on the Isle of Skye in October '25.  I spent a couple of weeks on the island last summer with my brother Paul, his wife Sarah and their sweet little daughter Orla + my Mum and Dad. So, it was a kind of family holiday.

As is quite often the case I was on my own, as in no partner - in fact I'd just been through a difficult break up, as they all are I suppose, in fact we travelled through places I had stayed the previous year with my then girlfriend. 

Sometimes I feel as though the risk of love is too great because of the unique hurt experienced when something that was once so promising comes to an end.  Maybe it's better not to enter into the pact, to stay clear of the whole thing - which of course is impossible because I think we are made to love.  We are aching to love despite the risk.

Heartache is a very personal burden, and of course not all stems from lost love. It's all very complicated and maybe after a long time these periods can be viewed in hindsight with more objectivity. Better to have had that time with someone than not. If we are lucky we have other forms of love around us in friendship and family, and being on Skye with my family reminded me of that.  Of what keeps us together when we feel broken.  

This is actually the second painting of this view, which is an interpretation of the landscape just in front on the holiday home in which I was staying. I found it therapeutic to revisit this scene with an emotion of hopefulness for whats ahead.  The colours are punchy and deep, I hope I've captured the sense of space and water.