Eternity

Oil and gold tincture on canvas
100 x 130cm
2010

In 2010 5 days before my son Leon's 13th birthday I suddenly had the urge to paint the number 13 for him.

This impulse led me to a story that will go on forever.

I began by looking up the number 13, its meaning in different languages. I became aware of the number 13 within the so-called fibonacci sequence,
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89

Over some days I started to see that many major events in my life were reflected in this number sequence.
Robert Graves said in relation to "coincidences", in his book, "The White Goddess", that there are too many to ignore.
This was the case with me too with facts and dates of certain events beginning to fascinate me more than ever since before.

The plan that I drew on this day, 11.01.2010, is for that of an artwork that will be in the end the size 445 x 732,5cm as the spiral dictated by the fibonacci sequence should accommodate the number 89, the age of my Dad when Leon became 13.

I became a Dad to Leon aged 34

My Dad won money on a treble & all 3 horses came in as winners which meant he had the downpayment for our house which he would not have earned in many moons in 1950. The house number 13.

My Dad was born in 1921

These facts mean nothing to anyone else yet with words & paintings I wish to tell the story I call Eternity & of how life, my life, appears to live itself without me intervening.