Friday, May 6, 2016

Retinal Red


Pompeiin Still-life 92x122cm



My most recently painted ‘Pompeiian Still life’; named after perusing  Mary Beard’s book on ancient Rome, with its inclusion of 3 small but stunning images of wall paintings from Pompeii:  has recently set me on a crazy spree of cadmium- red- saturated- compositions. 
In my youth I fell in love with those Pompeiian red wall frescoes that decked the walls of those men and women that inhabited that fateful Roman town.  Fuelled, and kept alive and kicking by looking and studying modernist paintings such as Matthew Smith’s Nude, Fitzroy Street No1, 1916  and Matisse’s Red Studio 1911  
Mattisse Red Sudio

Matthew Smith Nude 


Over the years many of my paintings have fallen into this bracket of using Cadmium Reds to the point of no-return, hence no excuses for my latest one.