Carmel (oil on canvas)

The large portrait in oils was ostensibly someone born on 31 October 1895 who completely and mysteriously disappeared without trace in May 1945. It hangs in a private gallery of paintings. My work in recent times has become more expressionist, and this assisted in recognising who the portrait reminded me of. The more I looked at it the more I saw the vision of a girl born on 5 May 1945 who appeared out of nowhere, subsumed in sunbeams on what felt like an early October autumnal day's enchantment, but in fact it was late April 1967. It must have been around the time people took lunch, for the broad pavement around the corner from my photographic portrait studio was milling with hazy figures going hither and thither. Then she appeared from out of the crowd.