Skunk Cabbages-Ken Phillips

Every year, in earliest spring, when the skunk cabbage thrusts out of its swampy muck, I remember how my artist father, Ken Phillips, prized this wild, unusual plant. He used to take me down to the splendid swamp beyond our Mississauga home to admire these harbingers, which rose so mysteriously out of the ooze. So  fascinated was he by this strange wild plant, heralded by its mysterious mahogany spathes, and followed by huge, vividly green leaves, that eventually he made a series of six small oil paintings of them which I believe are some of his finest works. Unlike any other paintings, to me they evoke energy that blends the erotic and the spiritual in a stunning whole.

Skunk Cabbages-Ken Phillips