How do we fall in love? What is it that we want? Are we successful? Are we healthy? Can a piece of paper folded seven times help? Or a small bronze disc with abstract patterns etched by hand? Talismans come in many forms. Repeat a word over and over and sense it take the shape of something more powerful. Put a copper disc with a drawing of a naked couple under the pillow of your lover and see the change, make a baby, stay happy forever. Bury a prayer in the garden of your enemy and see them fall. Blow over the heads of travellers and make their journey safe.

For centuries talismans have played a part in many different societies all over the world. The lucky pen or interview suit, as well as more exotic or sinister items, embody the belief that a tangible object can do something so intangible as making someone fall in love. The power of a talisman lies in believing in it.

The relationship of the talisman lovers evolves through the seasons. The innocent, uncertain buds of spring blossom in the fierce, intertwined growing passion of summer which slows, matures and sheds its extravagances in autumn and gives way to winter when, together still but now as individuals again, they look forward to rediscovering the renewd buds of early spring.

There comes a time in everyone's life when love rules and nothing has the power to fight love. The irony is that love often kills what it has come to nurture. But life continues. In this six panel work I question our preconceptions about love. During my childhood we often played the game of bride and groom. I remember being madly excited and shy at the same time, standing with my garden-picked flowers in my makeshift veil, getting married off to a variety of neighbourhood boys at different stages. "Brides, we will all be real brides" is what my friends and I thought. But to pursue love and to be pursued by it is an earnest game which we come to learn. The love letters, the pocket photographs, the anxiety of waiting for the postman, the tears of breaking up, the torn pictures and wet pillowcases can all eventually lead to finding "the right one". But will it end happily ever after? After the innocence and honesty of childhood, we know that faith alone is not enough. The lovers in my work live in the shadow of the Love Talismans which give them the courage to face the journey of a relationship. The sugary promise of romance combines with the fear and pain of disappointment to chronicle the journey where a new beginning could be waiting around the corner.

Afsoon 2010