‘Somewhere between silver and stone’ contemplates materiality, memory, and transformation. The painting emerges from my ongoing engagement with the legacy and materials of the late Australian artist Margaret West. By working with silver and stone from West’s studio, I connect with the histories embedded in these materials while forging new connections and meanings. As I cast silver to make drawing tools and ground stone to make pigment, oil emerged as a unifying conduit, leading me naturally to oil painting.

This painting began with a foundation of twelve layers of hand-applied black gesso on linen, providing a deep, resonant backdrop for the metallic sheen of the silverpoint underdrawing. Over this dark, silvery ground, I applied a translucent glaze of lapis lazuli oil paint. The lapis, which I carved, ground and mixed to make the paint, yields a vibrant and elusive blue that often appears black, only revealing its blue essence in bright, direct or glinting light. This effect occurs due to the interaction of the blue stone particles, the transparent oil and glaze, the dark gesso, and the reflective properties of the silverpoint, transforming these materials into a unified surface of complexity and depth.

The shifting hues evoke a sense of transformation, mirroring the metamorphic journey of the materials themselves. Light interacts with the surface, revealing and concealing intricate layers of silver, lapis lazuli and oil. This interplay of light and shadow, translucency and opacity, reflects the fluid nature of memory and the continually shifting, subtle processes of becoming.