Passages 2010 | David Brown Fine Art, Rosebank, Johannesburg

Since an early age I had a sense of life not as a place, but rather as a journey – ironically a succession of places and journeys informed my early life. Early intrepid explorers and the remote uncharted places they sought influenced my wanderlust and over time an intimate relationship with nature, especially the ocean, developed. The ocean and journeys at sea became metaphors for stages of passage – Jungian psychologist, James Hollis refers to such stages as separation; death; rebirth; teachings; ordeals; returns.

When at sea the horizon moves as you move. One is continually aware of the push-and-pull whether to go to shore or to stay adrift, often belying the initial conditions or point of reference from whence the journey started – unaware too of the hidden topography of massive landscapes and tectonic structures below the surface. These works are testament of my tireless fascination with such phenomena. The ocean encapsulates the never-to-be-repeated, the unique – a shape-shifting paradox of transience and infinity as we journey through life’s passages.