Full Fathom

The blues of deep water gather into one field. Cerulean, indigo, teal and near black move together in constant flux. Red flares in the deep, sudden and urgent. White traces fall, light from far above. This is water from the inside.In Gestalt the mind unifies fragmented parts into a whole greater than their sum, and this painting enacts that directly. Each shard of colour is its own small event, yet none exists in isolation. Jungian psychology speaks to the same movement at a deeper level, the integration of separate parts of the self into a coherent whole. Full Fathom is immersion, the feeling of being held inside something vast and alive, stillness at the centre of constant movement. Awe so complete that for a moment there are no problems, no separation, no self. Only this. Alert. At peace. Alive.This wholeness is built into the painting's construction. Individually painted papers were torn and collaged across the surface, each fragment carrying its own colour before being gathered into the whole. Brushwork moved back across the layers to bind them, while pale drips of paint were allowed to fall and branch freely, threading connection through the fracture into one continuous, living depth.To fathom something is to reach its depth. Full Fathom is that reaching. Every blue that water can be, the sudden red of life in the dark, light falling from somewhere far above. Stand in front of it long enough and you stop looking at water. You are inside it.