My dance with depression has always been with me and I have accepted that it is a true partnership that, as my Buddhist teacher would say, as an experience, allow it to arise, exist and pass away. It was in one these darker periods when I first ventured out into the landscape of my mind searching for images that would reflect these terrifying places.

The process for me is to just enter into the darkness and allow the images to unfold on to the paper without hesitation, fearlessly and give it a form, a face or any other manifestation. It has become an interesting and fascinating journey for me to explore and reflect on the images created over the years and as the episodes continue, I still immerse myself in the same process but as the years fly past, I witness the darkness receding as the light enters.

There was a point when I had the original B+W images printed at A1 size in reverse, that is to say, the lines would manifest as white on black paper. As I have been colour blind my whole life, this gave me an opportunity to bring some colour to the images and I entered into it with the same fearless attitude and allowed myself to apply the colour without hesitation or regard to what I was looking at. This was a major breakthrough for me and over a period of 2 years I produced over 50 works that began with some of the bleakest images I have ever created, and with the addition of colour, I experienced a true sense of transformation. I have used this method on most of the work I have done since including The Humandala.

a true sense of transformation • 2003