Approx. 50.5 cm (w) x 65.5 cm (h), oil paints on cotton canvas.
Date produced: January 1983, while living at West Beach

This painting was produced entirely on-site at the bottom end of my street, at West Beach (I lived there from 1982-1986).

Looking at some healthy garden plants, I wanted to respond to the greenery and the flowers as two different ‘dimensions’ of experience - the greenery as one ‘dimension’ (overall structure and collector of sunlight for the production of food), and the spectacle of the red flowers as another ‘dimension’ (the visual attractors of insects and birds for the plant’s reproductive system). I tried to use different approaches in painting them, to express these two aspects as being different ‘dimensions’.

A white butterfly was seen flying all around the plants, and I deliberately painted one in simply at that location to indicate its weightlessness, and to also to give it the role of being the central point of interest. It balances the whole painting with its unique note of white (extreme high tone).

I was very happy with this painting. It felt like I was producing in a similar way to Vincent van Gogh (who was one of the artists who was a huge influence on my appreciation of artwork at that time). I worked boldly, quickly (not over fussing), and with good feeling. The painting was built on a foundation of good thinking and good ideas, as well as responding directly to a real multi-dimensional ‘living and breathing’ scene.