Pomelos d'amour
This series is a dialogue with the poet, Clinton Breutsch, about romantic love.Texts and paintings unfold around the different cycles of the plant. There is a grapefruit tree that grows in my garden, it came into my life as an unexpected gift, a romantic jest a proof of love, maybe even devotion. The fruit and the blossoms, the bending branches have become a symbol for a lifetime together. As I explore the life cycle of the tree, from flower to fruit, to the dried skin used to light our winter fires, the complexities of marriage and love are explored. From one painting to another, in the simplicity of line, the multiplication of details (like a mandala), in the solids and the acid colors are evoked: patience, maturation, acceptance, sharing, abandonment and finitude of love. The impermanence of the pomelo is presented in interiors bathed in light where there are permanence: trust in nature, the nature of love, the cycle of love like the cycle of nature. The citrus is first a flower with a fine aroma, becomes a promise, then a juicy fruit to share. He sits in protective skin, like patience in love. Under its thick skin it can wait a long time without rotting. But to tend towards its ultimate state, it is fragile, rotting lurks. "I made the Pomelos a symbol," that of the work necessary for love to live in a consumerist world. It is also an invitation and a return into the cycles of nature, what is most human.