Kingfishers are without question one of
the most dramatic and memorable birds on can encounter in the UK. They
appear, jewel-like, in their turquoise, blue, and russet finery amidst deep
green streamside shadows where they wait, motionless, before plunging dart-like
into the water to retrieve a minnow. I have never been especially fond of
painting action, finding the moments just before and just after an event more
evocative to paint, where the viewer can infer from posture and tension the
coiled energy of impending motion or the immediate aftermath of the same.

In the two companion pieces, “Before”
and “After,” I positioned kingfishers in postures suggestive of the moment
before a dive and just after. In
“Before,” the bird occupies the upper portion of a long, vertical composition,
and we follow the bird’s intense gaze along the swirling lines leading the eye
explosively and precipitously down towards unseen prey. In “After,” the position of the bird is
reversed, and it is looking up, moments before taking flight to assume, yet
again, an appropriate perch from which to survey the waters below.

Both of these pieces are about a careful
balance of positive and negative space, a seamless interaction of
representational realism and abstraction, and a strong sense of impending
motion.