KH Messen paintings, November.

I walk through the passage, squeezing between sculpted forms, dusty feet and dusty legs. Hot sky and hot neck, small sips of hot water. I brush over in white and a pool forms, drips drips from the sky and beneath me there is a gleaming turquoise. It looks cold but it is hot, steaming. Along the cliff edge I hold onto the red rock and don’t look down. Don’t put your hands in dark places. Stamp so that they can feel you coming. I follow a muddy path that takes me through the trees but I am stuck in the foreground. Looking up, a great swathe of grey obscures even the trees but stops precisely at the dark water. This water is solid. 

I struggle through, climbing over the boulders that start off pink but darken as I move, collapsing under the weight of that grey sky. My neck is still hot and my mouth is still dry. I continue to climb out of this hole, step by step, the sweat running down my back. The sun moves and I am hit by a delicious pocket of cool air. It forms a pool of green on the ground but quickly evaporates. I take an apple out of my rucksack and eat it slowly, letting the juices sit on my tongue. 

I finally reach the top and brush the bright sky black until it leaks into the pink earth. It is a slow sun, I’d forgotten, and it takes me by surprise. The blue hovers and obscures the mountains so that I feel like I am looking at the sea. A veil of rain moves in and washes the dust off my ankles. 

back at Kunstnarhuset Messen residency in beautiful Ålvik, Norway

painting and playing with pigments from the american west