At the Banks of the Brown River

My talented friend Flora Hibberd is a singer-songwriter. I met her in Paris in front of a quirky bookshop I worked at along the Seine – being a wannabe writer/poet – and her voice touched my heart. Many bottles of wine, a stay at her houseboat in London, an exceptional private festival in Sweden and a few candlelit dinners later, she sent me a few lines of a song she was writing:

Was I at the window, waiting?
Passive/patient widow, twenty-four
Was I down at the banks of the brown river
Listening hard, you in oblivion?

It brought me back to my Paris back then: the brown river, the endless waiting for better days while I was actually living them… I listened so intently that I couldn’t hear meaning in silence.

So with soft pastels I drew Flora, looking out over that magical, muddy city that Paris can be. ‘Flowers grow from shit’, another friend later told me, and that’s what intense times can be. This pastel drawing is an ode to shit that brought forth the prettiest flowers I could wish for.

At the Banks of the Brown River is available, 17,7 x 23,6 cm, softpastels on pastelmat 360 g/m2, € 179. Contact me for more info.