Print series: Belt of Venus

I’m often looking up—through windows at night, cycling along the seafront, or walking home past Brunswick Square in Hove. Those skies, along with childhood evenings spent studying constellations with a torch and a sky map, have led to a new series of prints: The Belt of Venus. The Belt of Venus is a soft pink glow that appears just before sunrise or after sunset, hovering above the horizon opposite the sun. It’s caused by sunlight scattering through the atmosphere, often separated from the horizon by the darker band of Earth’s shadow. In winter, the colour can feel sharper and more vivid.

Around 20 March this year, I watched a delicate crescent moon sit beside Venus in the western sky—a brief, bright pairing that felt closely tied to this work. 

Art Echoes

I don’t think this fascination with light—especially at dawn and sunset—is unique to me. It feels universal.

It’s the presence and absence of light that we instinctively connect with life itself: beginnings and endings, arrival and departure, birth and death. Artists have always returned to this threshold.

Recently, I saw several exhibitions that deepened this curiosity.

At Pallant House Gallery, I encountered Dawn (1912) by Sir William Nicholson—a quiet, restrained painting that somehow holds an entire atmosphere within it.

At Tate Britain, I spent time with works by J. M. W. Turner, including The Lake, Petworth, Sunset. Turner’s handling of light feels almost dissolved—less about representation, more about immersion.

Then at Towner Eastbourne, in an exhibition originating from the Holburne Museum, I saw more of Turner’s work: A Low Sun (c. 1840) and River Scene with Crescent Moon (c. 1841). These works sit right at that edge—where form begins to give way to light.