But the blink...
But the blink…
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 60 × 60 x 4 cm
Framed: 72 × 72 x 6 cm
From the painted caves of our ancestors to the telescopes that look back billions of years, this painting spans 50,000 years of imagination. White bulls and stags, drawn from ancient cave art, drift across a star-filled expanse; between them, the red clouds of a nebula burn against the dark. The frame is flame-charred — carbon, the basis of all life — holding the image in a blackened edge of transformation.
Our lives — our threescore years and ten — are but a blink in this continuum. Yet the creative impulse endures, linking us to those who lived and dreamed tens of millennia ago, and carrying us forward into the unknown.
But the blink… was selected for ÍOMHÁ, the Irish Cultural Centre’s open exhibition marking its 30th anniversary.
The exhibition ran from 26 September 2025 to 12 January 2026 at the Irish Cultural Centre, Hammersmith, London.
Awe and Inspiration
I was — and still am — utterly intrigued by Canadian researcher Genevieve von Petzinger’s discovery that early humans across Europe, from Spain to Sicily, used the same 32 geometric symbols in their cave paintings for more than 30,000 years. Circles, lines, triangles — a shared visual language long before writing.
And now, today, the James Webb Space Telescope looks back more than 13 billion years, revealing galaxies so early and immense they challenge what we thought we knew about the origins of the universe. We’re seeing light that set out near the dawn of time — only now reaching us.
A breathtaking thought — and a timely reminder of what an astonishing species we are.
Watch: Genevieve von Petzinger — Why Are These 32 Symbols Found in Caves Across Europe? →
Other works
To see more, please click on one of the images below.
Tethys: When the Sahara Was Sea
Oil paint, mediums, and sand on canvas (Framed)
Oil on 8 – 8 x 8 inches – Gessobord panels
Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 1
Oil paint on canvas
