“Lone Wolf”
As I was contemplating the theme of ‘Identity’ two significant things happened:

Oil on box canvas, 23.5 x 23.5”, 2021
I began dreaming of a wolf, which had been a recurring dream of mine from the past; and I came across a meme online, it showed the connection between patterns in nature – the veins in leaves look like river maps and also the arteries of human lungs. I used the river/vein markings in my image and created them to look like foliage surrounding the impression of a wolf’s head.
This connection with the natural world and animal kingdom is also symbolised by the DNA strand pattern with the golden thread intertwined. It reaches up into a sea of circles, where its strands become scattered. The circles represent all the people and events in our lives spinning around us like wheels or cogs of a machine. Identity is made up of multiple layers and shaped by everyone and everything we come across in our entire lives. From a distance, the circles appear to blend in and are not distinguishable as individual, unique forms; however, some are larger, some darker, some rise to the top, some drift behind, all are imperfect, much like we are.