At the end of my garden is a reedbed, full of life, currently home to murmurations of starlings who chitter there in the evenings. I was also lucky enough to spot an otter slink into the water at dawn a few days ago. Sometimes, on a grey day, the reeds appear a dull yellow to a grey back drop where mountains once existed. At other times they glow like gold or a moving sea of red in the evening light. They are always moving and changing.
I have tried time and again to express how the reeds look, to somehow show the essence of this moving, changing sea. My most recent attempt has been a frustration, a battle of tone and colour, never quite getting the shape, the feel, the essence. I’m sharing my attempts of this subject and these works in progress. Sometimes it doesn’t all fit together, frustrations of layers of paint, going away, coming back, looking again and again.
Nuala Dunn Artist 