Firemen arrived, began a back burn in the bush behind our house. The flames, the crackling twigs and grasses, bursting banksia pods, fleeing beetles, the smell of smoke and ashes, leave a vivid impression - a kind of prototypical sentiment bordering on exaltation. Green will return brightened, sprouts will burst from night black boles, incinerated scrub make way for unforeseen trails. This painting is about transformation and renewal through sublimated pain and passion. As Carl Jung explains: “On the one hand, emotion is the alchemical fire whose warmth brings everything into existence and whose heat burns all superfluities to ashes. But on the other hand, emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light or from inertia to movement without emotion”