Painting directly onto the pages, interrupting the narrative, she began to create a magical world of her own inspired by the wonder within the books, where the edges between nature, animal, human and cosmos begin to blur and dissolve.

In this fantastical world, species merge, sometimes masked, hidden and disguised; Or unmasked, freely and openly whole as themselves. This imagined space draws on traditions of myth, fairy tale, and magical realism, proposing an alternative ontology, an antithesis to anthropocentricism in which harmony, respect and interdependence, replace fixed boundaries and binaries. The work seeks to reconnect with forms of wonder and enchantment that are often marginalised within dominant rational narratives.

The intimacy and modesty of the scale became integral to the work, fostering a sustained engagement with an interior world, a secret different reality, a magical one, away from heaviness of flesh. Opening a book we enter another world. It is an invitation. There is an inherent privacy in the artwork being between the covers and an intimacy of opening the book and being allowed into that world. A preciousness in visiting it and perhaps one becomes a little changed / transformed having been touched by it.

Currently standing at over 250 painted pages, she continues to let this world evolve and grow, now taking them beyond the pages translating them into larger paintings, and in the future animations, where this intimacy survives through scale, detail, and the demand for closeness. Rather than offering itself immediately, the painting becomes something encountered gradually, maintaining a sense of privacy even within a public space. In this way, the magic of the book is translated into a relational experience: an invitation to enter, to linger, and to be quietly changed.

@Janecordeliafox