In 2017, I began feeding a stray Arabian Mau cat outside my home in the Middle East. I named him Sparta after the film 300 because he guarded my doorway like a warrior. One day, when a vicious dog lunged towards me, Sparta stepped in front of me and faced the dog himself. By the time I returned to England in 2020, I already knew I could never leave him behind.

A warm, radiant study of a bird in flight, captured mid-message as it moves between the earthly and the otherworldly. The first layers of golden light and threads have begun to emerge in this 12x16 oil on canvas.