Often works become part of a complete ‘voyage’ along a particular path, the impulse and the outcome of which shows itself at the end of the entire body of work. “The Lily Suite” falls under this category, for in this body of work I allow my personal fascination with the Lily to inspire me to the point of letting it lead me toward creative expression akin to visual epiphanies.

The Lily, a flowing plant – Lilium of the family Liliaceae, the lily family – is commonly associated with beauty, fairness, purity, and fragility. Personally it represents all these concepts at face value, plus the universe held within each individually and its related associations.  Consequently, in “The Lily Suite” I attempt to  explore these concepts and associations through the use of the symbol of the Lily as both subject and object in a visual journey of discovery. In the creative process, the intoxicating scent of the Lily and the allure of its fragile beauty, as exemplified by the Casa Blanca Lily,  played a vital role. Each painting session began with some fresh Lilies placed close to my easel: each session entailed a meshing of the self with ‘the ideal’ on all planes juxtaposed with both a celebration of life and a mourning or grieving for the ‘shortness’ thereof, all represented by the Lily.

In the process of art making, I used the benefit of new technology to gain access to the possibilities inherent in the subject matter by taking digital photographic images of me (the artist/ both subject and object) with freshly cut lilies.  Once these images were loaded into the computer, photographic software was used to manipulate both the focus, size and design of the image to be translated onto a two dimensional surface using traditional methods. Drawings and works on paper preceded the actual final renditions in oil on canvas. The tactile and sensual colours and qualities of the oils themselves are important and have their own language. Juxtapositions of colour and form lead to a separation of the inspiration and the resource to ‘a life of its own’.  At this point the painting starts to determine the direction of the ‘completed work’…often far removed from the initial digital image, the drawing, and even the initial intent of the piece. In fact, the initial images somehow ended up without even a hint of a lily ( the initial inspiration and resources contained an abundance of both lilies and colour ) and are practically monochromatic.  The later images – parts III and onward burst forth into a colour, almost involuntarily, and the later the use of layering and glazing allowed the different layers of paint to show through adding that extra dimension I find so intoxicating.

A part of the “The Lily Suite”  was on exhibit at the World Fine Art Gallery, New York, USA, May 4 to 27th,  2000. Works-on-paper, some related to “The Lily Suite”, have been on exhibit at the Galerie Kandinsky, Vienna, Austria, April 6 to 13th, 2000.