These images seem to me to be made up of opposites: surface and depth, fragility and permanence, stillness and movement; even though they are saturated with colour, the specific colours are almost impossible to define. The focus itself is mysterious – maybe how a bird might see a landscape – as if looked at through a microscope but from a great height.

They belong together as a series or sequence: to see just one on its own would be to diminish the impact. In this way they remind me of music and, for the same reason, they need to be carefully staged so that they can resonate with the space and the air around them.

 The paintings seem to be holding their breath and I wonder if they suggest that something is about to happen. But it becomes clear as you look longer (and you need to look longer) that the sort of vapour of melancholy that drifts up from their transparent/opaque surfaces indicates that something irrecoverable has already happened: the holding back, the intake of breath, is the shock of loss.

Their beauty points to a stranger possibility of permanence. I thought of that Yeats quote: “Everything exists, everything is true and the earth is just a bit of dust beneath our feet”.

I love the freshness of the watercolour and acrylic sketches – they are a complete contrast – and by their intimacy and specificity, they give a closer perspective of the world at ground level.

Celia Paul