CAIN

Black to the heart and calcined to the bone
With love that desolates and fills no sphere,
The barren love that holds the sole self dear,
Which makes the hell wherein it reigns alone;

So wanders Cain till self to self is grown,
A spectre which, in flying, he falls sheer—
Bowed to God’s all-consuming breath—a mere
Dumb sacrifice on Abel’s altar-stone.

Then lo, the cloud that darkened all his day
And hid the watchful angel of God’s love,
The angel’s stormy hand has rent away;
Pure light of life beats on him from above,
Cool tears of dawn make soft his hardened clay,
And heal the frienzied heart God’s lightnings rove.

These are the closing verses of a 19^th Century poem by Emily Pfeiffer.  The ancient story of Cain and Abel was the starting point for this new series of paintings. These works continue an exploration of ideas of incompletion, brokenness and hope, and the way the qualities of paint can mirror the vulnerability and tensions of the human experience.   
Rather than directly pictorializing the story of Cain and Abel, these paintings draw from metaphors used previously in my work to consider some of ideas and thoughts arising from this story.

Exhibition gallery: