“With regard to eggs” (I)

This artwork will be exhibited at Ping Pong 129, Hong Kong, from September 2025

Pictured is a woman of uncertain age contemplating an egg.

Eggs are symbols for so much: women have a finite number, they symbolize possibility, origin, nourishment, abundance, economic markers, evolution, choice, as well as a loss of choice. There is invariably a sense of time passing to them: a distinct expiry date.

A gecko figures into this painting in the upper left quadrant. It stems from a myth my grandmother would tell me, of a gecko as a time-marking symbol, and a premonition. It will recur through this series.

A dog figures into this painting in the lower right quadrant; he reminds me of my beautiful old dog Rumpole who often figures into my work.

As with some of my other series, this is also a self-portrait. I suppose sharing context on the scene is me breaking the proscenium. With that in mind, I maintain my recurring interest in depicting a theatrical curtain; it marks my interest in demarcating the performance that is the creation of an image, from reality, and playing with gaze in the act of interacting with art.

I conceived of this series while waiting for an appointment in a women’s clinic to receive my first mammogram as I entered my 40s.

36x36 inches, oils on linen