BURNT OFFERINGS - Painting with Fire
In the Burnt Offerings series, art is transformed through fiery sacrifice. Using recycled cedar boards made up into panels, the original Abstract compositions use colourways inspired by two road trips in 2019 and 2023 through Canada and USA. More recent work has focused on seascapes about the beautiful Mahurangi Harbour and Gulf in New Zealand. These acrylic paintings transition with the application of intense heat, causing paint to bubble, colours to shift, and the cedar boards to crackle and char. This metamorphosis is a testimony to sacrifice, transition, and transformation, echoing burnt offerings of the past. “I know that many people would have difficulty understanding why I would go to the trouble of creating a good painting, carefully thinking and taking time over colour and composition and then go deliberately set fire to it and burn it but I like how the paint changes colour, you never are totally sure of what heat is going to do to the texture of the wood surface or the paint, the bubbles, the charring, for me it’s painting with fire and the unexpected nature of it appeals to me.”