White Irises

Oil on linen

23 by 30 cms

When I walk past the florist on Whitehorse Road, these irises seem to call out to me with their utter loveliness. Each flower, with its white wings, makes me think of an angel.

But they are a complicated bloom. I spend time studying and copying Georgia O’Keeffe’s black irises, so that by the time I’m ready to paint the ones on my dining room table, they have lost much of their vibrancy. Which, in a way, is the point of painting flowers anyway.

Painting them is terribly difficult, and I work at a torturously slow pace. But in the end, even I think that my irises are beautiful, and when my mother compliments them, I offer them to her.