Liquid water conforms to the shape of its container but takes on a very different shape when circumstances change, yet it never stops being water. A shadow is an authentic effect of that which casts it but gives very little information about its source. Briefly seeing a person from the outside - even including their words and behaviour along with appearance, can only give a tiny glimpse of all that is going on inside, and very little about their past and future, yet it is not disconnected from who they are.

The calm ocean stretches from a narrow band of gritty sand at the bottom to the horizon very near the top of the picture. The long evening shadow of a figure is cast onto the shallow water, with thick legs rooted beyond the bottom of the picture plane. The silhouette narrows as it stretches toward the horizon, increasingly obscured by the ripples reflecting the sky. The colours of the water transform from rich rusty oxide as seen through shallow water, to bands of pale blue sky reflecting more and more in the ripples the further we get from the beach, until all is pale blue with bands of rust, then darker blue as it approaches the horizon. The sun shines from almost directly behind the viewer, yet the shadow is cast from slightly off-centre, as if the shadow belongs to a solid companion standing beside the invisible viewer.

Based on a photo taken by me in late summer of 2024, at a local beach in south eastern Prince Edward Island, where the sand really is very rusty red and the beaches are very shallow a long way out into the Northumberland Strait.

Painted with a limited palette of white, transparent burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and phthalo blue.

For sale at Sir Andrew Macphail Homestead (Orwell, PEI).