I first encountered Shiprock quite by chance during a coast to coast road trip in the US in 1995 and it took a quarter century for this painting to emerge. Tse Bit’a’ I is the Navajo name for Shiprock which is located within the Navajo Nation for whom it holds a foundational mythology.

It is not a rare thing for places, motifs and views to linger within for many years only to find their correct moment and expression as and when they decide. In the interim they may become ever more charged, ever more significant and while I am still at a loss with regard to Shiprock’s specific meaning to me it remains simply there; intangible, emblematic and indeed now part of my own mythology.