City Scape
City Scape is a 50 x 60cm acrylic painting on hard board. It is a fantasy representing the sights you find in European cities. In the foreground, an elaborate canal system and narrow houses with gabled facades, legacies of Amsterdam’s 17th-century Golden Age and the skyscrapers of Paris and London in the back ground.
Moody Marty – Sure Does Have The Blues
‘Moody Marty – Sure Does Have The Blues’ is a 1m x 1m canvas of my dear friend Marty. It is painted in Windsor Blue, Titanium White and Mars Black acrylics. At present it is unframed although this can be accomplished here or at the purchasers prefered framers.
Lepidoptera No.1 – Splendens
Lepidoptera No.1 – Splendens
This is a 45cm x 35cm acrylic on canvas. I painted it in celebration of a work colleague’s birthday.
Lepidoptera No.2 – The Grey Gathering
Lepidoptera No.2 – The Grey Gathering
This is a 35cm (H) x 28cm (W) acrylic painting. I have used a masking fluid to reveal lots of butterflies underneath the field of Paynes grey and titanium white.
Lepidoptera No.5 – The Great Grey Fluttering
Lepidoptera No.5 – The Great Grey Fluttering is a 100cm (H) x 100cm (W) x 3.5cm (D) acrylic painting. I have used patches of crimson, Paynes grey and titanium white and masking fluid to reveal one hundred, fluttering butterflies. This is the largest of the Lepidoptera series… so far! This painting was painted in the Spring of 2018 and joins the four other butterfly paintings in this series. I enjoy this form of expression so I will add to this collection in the future.
Butterflies are insects in the Order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, which was about 56 million years ago.
Butterflies have the typical four-stage insect life cycle. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their entire life cycle.
Butterflies are often polymorphic, and many species make use of camouflage, mimicry and aposematism to evade their predators. Some, like the monarch and the painted lady, migrate over long distances. Many butterflies are attacked by parasites or parasitoids, including wasps, protozoans, flies, and other invertebrates, or are preyed upon by other organisms. Some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees; other species are agents of pollination of some plants. Larvae of a few butterflies (e.g., harvesters) eat harmful insects, and a few are predators of ants, while others live as mutualists in association with ants. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts.
(most text abridged from the wikipedia page on Butterflies)
Woman in an Overcoat
Woman in an Overcoat
This is a H 35cm x W 28cm x D 2cm acrylic painting of a woman preparing to go outside in the cold. The distressed background and fake frame are tired and old whereas our subject is full of colour and ‘life’.
Bottled Matthew
Bottled Matthew
Bottled Matthew (30cm x 40cm) is a medium sized acrylic painting that shows the artist and his faults; drinking wine and chain smoking.
Birthday Boy – Bacon Roll
Birthday Boy – Bacon Roll
‘Birthday Boy – Bacon Roll’ is a small 20cm (w) x 28cm (H), self portrait translated from a photograph of my own son on his birthday. His birthday made me aware for the first time of the precious and all consuming love that one feels for ones children. The portrait I show here is ‘Bacon-ised’. (an homage to Francis Bacon’s distorted figures). I painted it as a bleak contrast to the photos of the birth of my own son. (see also the paintings of my son as ‘Dorian Grey.’)
Rock & Roll
Rock & Roll
Rock & Roll is a large (1m x 1m) acrylic painting on stretched canvas. There are suggestions of rock and roll throughout the piece. There is also a large head in the centre of the painting belonging to a World War I trench soldier and this space doubles for a World War I War Horse
Titans, Gods & Men
Titans, Gods & Men is a large, 1m x 1m, colourful acrylic on canvas that suggests the relationship between the ancient mythical hierarchy of Titans, Gods & Men.