Before colour appears.

I begin making a work with my own signs. I call them runes and treat them as a signature and a spell with which the work starts. They are part of the way I enter a painting.

Firefly and Fish began this way too, on New Year’s Eve 2022. I returned to the next stages a few months later. The signs belong to the beginning of its story, even when the painted water, fish or light later command attention.

The photographs of Armchair let you approach a corner and see one of these signs up close. Beside it are the edge of the panel and the paint. The signature exists together with the surface on which I work.

The story of making is part of what I pass on with a painting. I include documentation and a certificate of authenticity, and mark the work with my own stamps. An account of its beginning and a tangible confirmation of authorship accompany the same physical work.