Tommy Rivers Puzey, amazing person and ultra-runner, is in intensive care with lung cancer. This painting, which I’ve made specially, has now been sold at auction here to help raise money for his ongoing medical care and for his family. I’ve called it Upward over the Mountain to recall a song by Iron and Wine, which Tommy loves. To just make a straightforward donation, go here.
Recently I’ve come to appreciate Tommy’s writing, his calm and resilient approach to life, and amazing achievements. Shocked to hear of his illness, I wanted to do something which would contribute above my own financial weight. Tommy looks to me a bit like one of my Biblical figures; with his flowing beard, he traverses great distances, over formidable obstacles, in search of real life and real truths. Thus inspired, I focused all my energy on getting a painting done, about him and for him, and didn’t stop till it was finished. I worked on it early every morning and late every evening for six days until it was done. My painting shows Tommy running up a mountain in a moonlit desert landscape. The rocks and hills are made up of a myriad of colours, the night sky is filled with hundreds of stars and points of light, and the light of dawn is just coming up.
An Aboriginal Primal Connection
By using hundreds of dots, I wanted to evoke the aboriginal paintings of Australia, which have such rich colouring and speak of the ancient, earth-connected heritage of man. Ultra-runners are connecting with this same primal heritage all the time, so this felt the right way to go with this painting. I also couldn’t resist putting in some ancient hieroglyphs of running men on one of the rocks.
Tommy is running from darkness into light – back into full health. And while I was painting all those dots, I was thinking about the millions of cells that make up our bodies. Just as changing the colours, shapes and position of the dots alters the emerging image, so the doctors’ work effects change in the cells of the body, evoking healing and reconstitution.
Detail showing little running men in an aboriginal rock painting
Detail showing colour, texture and pattern.
I had several late nights this week just painting dots! This is a detail with yet more dots, and signature.
….and a few more dots….!
This shows the painting when I’d just begun. The blank canvas is always the most daunting: Just get something down and go with it!
