“An artwork is of course the accounting of the visible world but it is equally an accounting of the invisible world” – Richard Tuttle

Language and painting are inextricably linked to our perceptions of the visible and invisible world. The quote above captures a sense of the elusive relationship between the act of creating something, the person creating it and the nature of creativity itself. In communicating our experiences, dreams and beliefs through the arts, we also communicate a sense of our humanity. One of the things that make us unique are the experiences we choose to share or hide and how we share or hide them.

The extracts below are from my father, Farid's last poem, 'The Moon is You'. Hand written after a moonlit walk, twenty-seven years after my mother passed away, it captures the emotions of love and loss on a sky sized scale.

“The moon is you / Full of light and life, / That wisp of a cloud / That floats around you / Draped like a silken scarf / Is me. / This night is ours / Until we part.” – G.F. Riaz, 20.7.16

Through the process of painting, I wanted to meditate on the power of language and the emotions it conveyed in the context of my father's poem. Reflecting on the 'you', 'me' and 'we' in my parents' relationship, on its brightness and shadows, I approached the theme from different perspectives inspired both by the poem and by my family's experience; my father's emotions and the contrast between tenderness and devastation, my parents' relationship, my response to my father's feelings and my own feelings of love and loss.