Ten Mangoes, 2022

When I lived as an expat in Hong Kong, I used to live walking through Stanley Market on my way home from an warm ocean swim. The fruit seller near the front of the market always had fresh young coconuts, ready to be hacked up with his machete and ...

When I lived as an expat in Hong Kong, I used to live walking through Stanley Market on my way home from an warm ocean swim. The fruit seller near the front of the market always had fresh young coconuts, ready to be hacked up with his machete and sipped on my way home. Along with the green coconuts there were piles of mangoes. I feel like I never really tasted a mango until living in Hong Kong. The slippery shiny deliciousness, wrapped in a stubborn skin of incongruent oranges and greens, never ceased to delight me - especially when he cut it up instead of me. He could always get more fruit off the clingy black stone inside. Well, after returning to Canada, those magical mangoes still call to me. If I couldn't go gather them up, at least I could paint them gathered near some of my favourite glass vases. The image is captivating in its interplay between the complementary colours of orange and turquoise and the contrast between the velvety, dense mangoes and the light, transparent glass behind. It is framed in a beautiful vintage wood frame in real gold leaf.