STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
Oil on Linen
The inspiration for this piece began with an unexpected moment—a silent staring contest with a raven on a gate post. Months later, while visiting an old Victorian factory in East Belfast on a cold, wet Monday morning, the winter sunrise created rays of hope, transforming my ideas for this piece.
Interesting fact: the song “Stairway to Heaven” was first performed by Led Zeppelin in the Ulster Hall in 1971.
I let my composition of paintings stay fluid throughout, and I have learnt to expect the unexpected. Instead of a landscape, the raven now inhabits the skeletal remains of the warehouse. In the long shadows of winter, the stairway climbs endlessly upward, as though reaching for the heavens. The walls crumble through years of decay, and the windows no longer serve their purpose.
This work highlights the fragility of the human body alongside the resilience of the mind. The raven has to accept its surroundings; however, they don’t have to be a cage in which it is entrapped. The building is only a cage if you allow it.
Some days you just have to accept that your way out has been temporarily blocked and trust that an exit will reappear.
Like the building, the stairway offers no easy way out. The shards of glass at every turn project the fear of trying to break free. Yet there is always the possibility of finding an inner strength that the building lacks. This is portrayed in the raven—the ability to find your wings and fly.
—
Original: FOR SALE
100cm × 120cm
Framed Print: Available for Order
Oil on Linen
The inspiration for this piece began with an unexpected moment—a silent staring contest with a raven on a gate post. Months later, while visiting an old Victorian factory in East Belfast on a cold, wet Monday morning, the winter sunrise created rays of hope, transforming my ideas for this piece.
Interesting fact: the song “Stairway to Heaven” was first performed by Led Zeppelin in the Ulster Hall in 1971.
I let my composition of paintings stay fluid throughout, and I have learnt to expect the unexpected. Instead of a landscape, the raven now inhabits the skeletal remains of the warehouse. In the long shadows of winter, the stairway climbs endlessly upward, as though reaching for the heavens. The walls crumble through years of decay, and the windows no longer serve their purpose.
This work highlights the fragility of the human body alongside the resilience of the mind. The raven has to accept its surroundings; however, they don’t have to be a cage in which it is entrapped. The building is only a cage if you allow it.
Some days you just have to accept that your way out has been temporarily blocked and trust that an exit will reappear.
Like the building, the stairway offers no easy way out. The shards of glass at every turn project the fear of trying to break free. Yet there is always the possibility of finding an inner strength that the building lacks. This is portrayed in the raven—the ability to find your wings and fly.
—
Original: FOR SALE
100cm × 120cm
Framed Print: Available for Order