This painting is a powerful metaphor for the way reading can transport us into the imaginings of others and to places we may never see and people we will never meet. As I started to bring out the imagery I was thinking about how for me the planning stages of any journey are as pleasurable as the journey itself.

The Reader’s Dream 2015 ©Mary Price 2015

This has been an incredibly inspiring year as I have taken on new challenges in my painting and tried to hone my style.

In ‘the Readers Dream’ I have followed the intuitive process, building a rich background of colours and marks using many tools as well as traditional paint brushes. I have then picked out imagery and developed the story of the central figure.

Close up of marks ©Mary Price 2015

The sky is exploding in a meteor storm with one of the stars landing on the book, perhaps a metaphor here – symbolising that dreams can become a reality and that reading helps us to form those dreams and to plan them and make them happen.

Meteor storm detail 2015 ©Mary Price 2015

She is reading a book with the word dream picked and scratched into the paint and painted on and washed over.

Detail – a page of dreams ©Mary Price 2015

Maybe she is dreaming about her next trip. The headdress which is becoming a trademark just lately is all about the way we have our minds filled with so much – in this case her mind is filled with the colour and tribal references that merge with the meteors in the sky. It represents her imagination.

A headdress of dreams ©Mary Price 2015

The fantastical tent with the stylised meadow flowers represents how she is currently grounded and in one place close up to nature and this is allowing her the space and time to feed her imagination.

The painting has become almost an allegorical painting that tells a story about the power of books, the importance of silence that comes from grounding in nature and the work we need to put in to realise our dreams.