As if in mid-flight, a poised figure holds out a tray elegantly balancing two glasses and a jug. She has mastered the elements and has become one with the landscape. She is light and darkness, lake, mountains, sky and the wind. Filled to the brim with all the richness and magic of the world around her she has channeled it into vessels to drink from.

This image emerged on top of a realistic portrait of a dear friend, that I had overworked and in surrender sadly painted over it. Instead, abandoning it led to radically transforming it. Intuitively and with the intention of harnessing qualities I see in her, a new and radical painting in the form of The Alchemist took shape