Maggie Taylor, Flora, 2026, oil on canvas, 46 cm x 61 cm
I met Flora in the Aberdeen Maritime Museum. She is a pine sculpture, a ship’s figurehead from the clipper, the Star of Tasmania, wrecked off the coast of New Zealand in 1868.
I felt a close bond. She was damaged, lost and alone, vulnerable, much like me. Cast adrift in the middle of the ocean, lost and lonely, fighting for survival. At the will of the weather and the Gods. She has lost an arm and suffered damage to her torso. Despite all this, she has survived, is dignified and stoic, holding onto her memories, preparing for the future, and perhaps a return to the sea.
In the series of paintings “Beyond Words”, Flora weaves in and out, hovers, appears and disappears, sometimes painted into the shadows and then painted over – there and yet not there – a constant presence along the journey.
Speaking of shadows, Gombrich (1995) says,
“there is something elusive in their appearance….they are fugitive and changeable…… they are not part of the real world. We cannot touch them or grasp them…..And yet there are situations when the appearance of a shadow testifies to the solidity of an object, for what casts that shadow must be real…..” (Gombrich, 1995, p. 17)
Flora (detail)
