I always collected sheets of old marble paper from diverse parts of the world. Marble paper has this ethereal quality of timeless organic abstraction.

I wanted to explore feelings, the freedom in loss and control, research symmetry within chaos and I started experimenting with carrageen moss and water, acrylic colours and treasured recipes as an exercise towards abstraction and the absolute. Marbling is a very alchemical process depending on the thickness and timing of the water and the dilution of the paints, the colours can either expand or unpredictably contract into patterns which can be combed or fanned yet never fully controlled. I also started incorporating colour pigments, these tend to disrupt the acrylic flow and break the colours into dense clusters.

I made a total of seventy water paintings. This series here is called ‘Private Cells, Common Skulls’.

They are on Japanese rice paper bathed in an aluminium solution, 67 X 42 cm.