She Carries the Sky – What We Carry: The Magpie Series

About the work

Mixed media on canvas. spray paint, Acrylic, gold leaf, oil bar

90 x 120 x 5cm. (35.4″ x 47.2″ x 2″)

She Carries the Sky explores inner landscapes — the emotional weight we move through, hold, and learn to live alongside. The central figure is abstract and shifting, suggesting transformation rather than a fixed identity, while magpies move through the composition as witnesses, companions, and fragments of thought.

The work holds a sense of inner weather: moments of turbulence, clarity, and quiet resilience existing at the same time. Layered colour, spray paint, and mark-making create depth and movement, echoing the way experience accumulates within us.

Although not a literal self-portrait, the painting reflects a personal state of being — an atmosphere rather than a likeness. It speaks to the idea that we each carry vast inner worlds, and that even through uncertainty and change, there is space, openness, and sky within us.