Meeting in the Garden

2014-2023
Oil on canvas
5ft x 4ft

I started this painting many years ago and during that time it’s gone through various manifestations. It started life as an exploration of one of my favourite story’s where Mary Magdelin meets the risen Christ in a garden and does not recognise him, thinking he is the gardener. He echoed the words ‘woman why do you weep’, and the tears in this picture became part of the water of life that enabled the garden to green.

I started by exploring the power of greens in abstract ways and the powerful meeting of these two people amid gat this backdrop of colour. I was never happy with my depiction of the garden and several years ago I painted in the birch trees which were inspired by the miracle of transformation that has taken place in the clay quarry in Pensnett. There was still something missing and this weekend the deer I met recently in the clay quarry appeared in this painting in the place where the meeting took place. A powerful symbol of new life and a resurrection in the garden.