Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship, oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm, 2018

This is one of my newer paintings and is a bit more experimental. I used a cardboard stencil to make the shape of the galleon ship which reveals abstract color elements below. Painting is often about layering and timing and in this work I'm experimenting with technique. These great masted ships are romantic symbols of a bygone era, the 17th and 18th centuries which are the foundation of our own time. For me I am attracted to the feeling of scale and power, the dream of pennants flying in the breeze and the waves crashing against the hull. Prague is a landlocked city, Shakespeare got it wrong in the Tempest when he wrote about the coasts of Bohemia. But in an imaginal sense, Bohemia is a land on the sea, with great vistas and horizons. As an immigrant I am a sailor lost at sea and my ship is painting itself, for it carries me through the world. That's what the painting means for me.

Some details:

"Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them
But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone"
----from Suzanne by Leonard Cohen