Maelstrom

Description

I painted Maelstrom after a visit to the coast one bleak November day. The weather was wild and unrelenting, and I stood there long enough to feel it properly, the cold, the noise, the sheer indifference of it all. I came home wanting to put that feeling on canvas rather than a photograph of it, the sensation rather than the scene.

The painting is built around that moment when a wave breaks with real force, that explosive burst of white at the centre-left that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once. I worked the cobalt and navy in sweeping layers around it, letting the paint move the way the water moved. The roiling blue carries most of the emotional weight here. It is restless and heavy at the same time.

What surprised me as the painting developed was the fire. The band of amber and orange that runs along the lower third was not planned. It arrived intuitively and I kept it because it felt true to something. There is always that tension in a storm between destruction and a strange, almost violent beauty. The warmth pushing up against all that cold blue captures it better than I could have with a tidier composition. This is one of three paintings in my Storm series, alongside Tempest and Before the Break, and I think it is the most raw of the three.

Maelstrom is acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, presented in a black floating frame and ready to hang. It comes with a certificate of authenticity and is available with standard shipping.