A blind woman that I met on her way to the local shops one day inspired this painting. The repeated figure from several viewpoints is entrapped in a dark vacuum of invisibility bounded by an invisible, impermeable membrane that isolates her from the world.

Her derelict house is on the left side of the painting. The child in the background, the flowers (gum-blossom, kangaroo paws, and wattle), and the city skyline, represent things she cannot see. Her hand reaches into the letterbox at her front gate for mail she cannot read.

I have used the texture of the grain of the wood panel to create a sense of the fragility of vision and the imagined instability and uncertainty of blindness.

Susan D White

Blindness and the Multi-Sensorial City (2006) includes a detailed discussion of the painting on pp. 28-30.