JANE MACNEILL: The Silence of Mountains

These are the mountains of my childhood, the hills of home. They are ancient, weathered, and rounded by retreating ice; the colours they reflect are dictated by their geology, by the plants that manage to grow on them, by the quality of snow and ice, and by water. Although I have walked countless times amongst them, it is their distance that moves me. When they are half hidden by forests, or by the vast thickness of air between my eyes and their surfaces, I am filled with a swelling sense of calm which sweeps away busy thoughts, a kind of fast track to the meditating mind’s goal of marvellous emptiness. For me, the process of painting is an attempt to recapture this effect; a clearing away of clutter, a distillation of what is seen through half closed eyes, to elements of water and stone, and air.

Jane MacNeill

June 2020