Goodnight My Love by Angus Gardner

Some sea otters never set foot on dry land. Imagine that? A four legged furry mammal that might only briefly stand on some rocks to crack open shellfish but who otherwise spend the entirety of their lives on the water, even when giving birth.

Whilst I find that remarkable, it wasn’t the thing that inspired me to paint Goodnight My Love - it was something otters do before they fall asleep that just seemed to me to be so charming and relatable. 

They sleep on their backs but before they nod off, they interlock their hands so they don’t drift apart during the night, ensuring that they fall asleep and wake up together. 

When a pair have young, the entire family will ‘hold hands’ before falling asleep, creating something known as a 'raft' to stay connected together whilst they slumber on the water.

That need for touch before and during sleep and the security that creates is something that resonates deeply with me and is perhaps one of the reasons this behaviour touched me so much - it’s something my wife and I still do, a hand on a hip, hand in hand or even just a toe touching a toe - that subconscious need to know that each other are there. 

Goodnight My Love imagines two paired otters floating on a calm sea, sun setting behind them, captured at that very moment when they have just drifted off to blissful sleep, hands interlocked, secure and at peace through touch, knowing that they are there for each other and will wake up together.