The Path of Ecstasy I

“The Path of Ecstasy I”: pink flowers built in texture until they grow out of the canvas. First part of a diptych, 100 × 90 cm, texture and oil.

The ground is a cool Tiffany shade. It does not argue with the flowers, it gives them room.

The pink is hot, the ground is cold. Everything is built on that difference.

The flowers here are characters in their own right. Each is fixed at the moment of opening: quiet, and already decided.

There are many layers and up close you see movement in them. From a distance the composition reads as a route from softness to tension.

Ecstasy in the title means a deep experience with freedom and honesty in it. A flash of emotion has nothing to do with it.

The petals are built thick and stand a centimetre off the plane. Side light picks them out and gives each flower its own shadow.

The second part hangs next to it. Alone, the path breaks off halfway.

This pair takes a bedroom or a wide living-room wall.