Lynn Spicher

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, 35 minutes from the ocean. As a young woman of colour coming of age in the apartheid era, the sea was my refuge - a vast, open space that offered me freedom and stillness when the world around me offered neither.
I have carried the ocean with me ever since.
For many years, my hands were my profession. As a licensed massage therapist, I underdstood the power of touch- the way skilled hands could bring healing and comfort to others. Then arthritis changed everything. After surgery to reconstruct my right hand, I found myself in convalescence, uncertain of what came next.
this is when i picked up a paintbrush for the first time.
With my dominant left hand , and with no formal training, I began to paint. Th e ocean I loved as a child in Cape Town came first- the waves the light on the water, the drama of an open sky. Then the mountains of Switzerland, the quiet roads, the alpine lakes, the wide landscapes of my adopted home. Everything I had stored inside of me over a lifetime began to find its way onto the canvas.
All the woks of this collection were created within a single year - my first year as a painter.They are landscapes of memory as much as of place. Each one is an invitation to pause, to...