Accumulation happens out in the world, and transformation occurs in the studio. Fragments of experience, travel, and memory are pieced into a second life. Light filtered through colour becomes a way of seeing that is atmospheric rather than descriptive. Colour, shapes, impressions, and fragments are arranged not to depict a scene but to elicit a feeling.

Says Cheesman: “For a long time, I’ve wanted my paintings to appear somewhere between a stained-glass window and a melted candle. Never did I think I’d actually start painting the subjects themselves – it was more about how they might appear from a distance or really close up through the texture of the painting and the use of bold contrasting colours side by side.”

“Everything within these works feels like it’s being seen through colour as though from within a new sanctuary,” he continues. “For me, the stained-glass represents that outlook in its most honest form; small fragments of glass can make up a shape with light-filtered beauty introducing curves and rectangles of blues, pinks, and greens. The small fragments I collect out on the street when I’m walking around become those moments on the canvas, placing them around the surface in an array similar to how a stained-glass
window is made.”

The recurring motif of a venus fly trap completes the analogy – opening to gather what it needs and then closing to work in private. Of this, Cheesman says, “The venus fly trap is purely a representation of myself, opening up to the world until I get what I need and then closing off to the cold Melbourne studio to paint – always at the ready to open up again.”