There is something about the way Colin McCahon’s life and work intertwine that resists interpretation. He always insisted it was the work that was important, not the life; while at the same time maintaining that the work was autobiographical. He also said that all art is about death: biography, too, seeks to describe the shape of a life which is over.

Endless Yet Never is not exhaustive; nor psychological; nor even interpretative. Instead it sets out the primary facts of the artist’s life in chronological order, relates those facts to the work he did and suggests what his influences, his preoccupations and his ambitions at any given time might have been.

The virtue of concision in the re-telling of a life is the opportunity it gives to identify the main lines without seeking to explain them. Biography may be an imperfect form; but it can show the trajectory of a soul and also say something about the character of that soul’s journey.

This is what Endless Yet Never tries to do.