A hard shell and soft light inside. From a thin stalk hangs a form with a golden-brown surface divided into irregular fields, and a vertical crack runs down its very centre.
A turquoise-yellow drop glows in the opening. It is the only place in the whole painting where the colour is saturated — everything else stays in the greys, ochres and cool violet of the ground.
I painted this as a closed thing that has stopped being sealed. It is not clear whether the light is escaping or has only just been lit.
The square format and the single central form make this a meditative painting — it hangs well in a bedroom or a study.
Oil on canvas, 100 × 100 cm. This work has been sold; it stays in the archive to show where the paintings available today came from. Similar motifs are in the oil painting gallery.