I have lived in Shetland for thirteen years and the unique light of the Northern hemisphere helps to shape the colours that live at the centre of my art.

In Shetland it is difficult to find a place where you are far from the sea. The sea shapes island life forming a natural barrier that offers protection and harvest but brings with it an isolation that forges unique identity and a strong community. My art became a confrontation with nature in a painterly battle between the secular and the sacred, and between the colours of light and the colours of dark. Some years ago when I was facing the sea, I realized that I was also facing myself because on an island there is nowhere else to go.

In winter the shortening days bring painterly introspection and the absence of light is an important ingredient of the Northern aesthetic. The low arc of the winter sun casts huge cool shadows across the land and at night the Northern lights dance a myriad of colours against frozen black horizons.

Boats help connect Shetland to the wider world and my boats symbolize mortality and the passing of time, a reminder of the fleeting fragile journey of life.

In the spring birds arrive and they become painterly bursts of color bringing messages from afar. At Simmer Dim the light shines for 24 hours and all is well.

Today I drew a starling with a rainbow of colour on his back that is all but hidden from the eyes of those who will refuse to see.

Paul Bloomer Shetland February 2010