Scout, Dreaming
2020, Oil on Canvas (30.5x23cm/12x9"), NFS
As my dog becomes steadily more elderly, I find myself hoping that I've done my best for her and that she's had a good life. I hope that, in her dreams, she is young again, jumping about after her ball.
In reality, she isn't so aware of her own mortality and I have no idea about how she views me, her carer.
Underlying this piece is a theme of mortality, from the point of view of the person who will experience and feel the loss rather than the person who is lost.
It is about how we hope others perceive our impact on their lives.
As all our seasons go by, as they do in the circular dream of hers, we hope that we have made the lives of those we love and look after better and that we have been allowed to live fully.
The heavens and the sun will be there long after us, but even they will eventually run the course of their cycle. But here Scout is, immortalised for now, in paint.
