Hear your breath

A father has gone down on his heels to be level with his child, and the two of them look the same way. The child has an arm round his neck, lightly, the way people hold on before they know a moment can end.

Both have their backs to you. “Hear Your Breath”, 120 × 100 cm, oil and mixed media.

The surf is white, milky and faintly pink, each running into the next with no border. The sky is gold, and a few small birds sit on the horizon.

They stand in water, which is no accident: almost every figure I paint touches water, because in it a person stops keeping face.

Gold here is light you cannot hold on to. It is this colour now. In ten minutes it will be another.

When did you last notice your own breathing?

Nothing happens on this canvas. Two people stand, the water is ankle-deep, the birds come no closer.

The faces are left out. Yours goes there.

A family painting. Buyers take it for a bedroom or a nursery.