Kintsugi Geese

Original watercolour and ink painting on 425gsm watercolour paper.

Painted area 34cm x 25cm

Framed with white painted wood frame and white mount.

'Kintsugi' refers to the ancient Japanese art of repairing broken objects by highlighting their cracks with gold - thereby rendering an imperfect object even more beautiful by celebrating the break and repair as part of its journey. This concept is sometimes applied to personal development, and the richness added to our lives by growing and becoming stronger in the face of adversity.

When lifting my handmade stencils as part of creating this artwork, I saw that some of the watercolour and ink had seeped under the stencils, interrupting the clean white outlines of the base of the tree and the geese. It brought to mind the kintsugi concept, and I decided to highlight the shapes in gold to celebrate this accidental beauty of imperfection.

This is one of my Order and Chaos series, silhouette-based paintings inspired by the wildlife and nature I see and photograph on my walks around Oxford.