Reflection of Eternity

“Reflection of Eternity”: a horse's eye filling the whole canvas. A 70 × 70 square, oil, gold moulding.

A wooden church is reflected in the pupil. People miss it at first: they see an eye, then the building comes out inside it.

Horses have walked beside us for centuries. In fields, in wars, on roads. I took the horse as the most bodily thing available: labour, instinct, warmth.

In the reflection, the sacred. Two axes of a life meet at a point the size of a pupil.

The gold moulding is deliberate. Icons are framed that way, and I point at that tradition openly.

God is not here directly. There is a reflection, and the thought goes on by itself.

I painted the church small and detailed, down to the logs. In the pupil it takes about three centimetres, and the whole work rests on them.

Look at it from close up: from two metres the church is gone and one large eye is left. It suits a study or a hallway where people pass within a metre.