Scheherazade exhibition of paintings

Mirror-Mirror 46x46cm oil on canvas

Its not long now until the opening of my solo show ‘Scheherazade’ at The Doorway Gallery www.thedoorwaygallery.com.  The show will be opening on the 7^th November and will run throughout the month until the beginning of December.

I have worked and lived with this collection of paintings for over a year now and it really does take that long to get them where I want them, before I feel confident that they are finished. 

Picking Bilberries 92x76cm oil on canvas

I have put together a collection of around 20-25 paintings, that imbue a similar colour palette and subject matter. A world of the ordinary with an undercurrent of story telling and mystery, that brings into the work a timeless connectivity to worlds gone by .  I like to layer and weave references to other eras and cultures, for example the painting Picking Bilberries, which reads as a seasonal painting of a woman harvesting wild bilberries growing on top of a  dry stone wall.   I was influenced by a Roman wall painting at the time and conveyed that in the dress and hair of the figure.  I am also enjoying here the references to the edge of  the wood, with those cautionary childhood fairy tales in mind. Another edge of the wood painting is ‘Mossy Pillow’, this painting was inspired by visiting my mum who was moving yet again and  looking through a trunk of old photos from her childhood.  It was a rare one of her looking so blissfully happy and beautiful holding up her pet dachshund surrounded by her beloved father, mum and younger sister. For me it was so poignant because her family broke up later, with  her father moving to South Africa, leaving her broken hearted. 

Mossy Pillow  92x76cm oil on canvas

For this show I was looking at Mogul decorative art and patterns , as can be seen in the large still life ‘Fisherman’s Table’.  This painting is a very round about interpretation of the fairy tale The Fisherman and his Wife.  This is my favourite fairy tale from my childhood and I have always been fascinated by it. It  really resonated with me as a child and continues to do so, to me it illustrates a deep sense of fundamental moral truth.  Too late for the property speculators and over indulgent  banks,  I think. 

Fisherman's Table  92x102cm oil on canvas

I have reintroduced my pug from the Rococo exhibition, and for some strange reason he seems to have taken the place of the Persian King  in the painting ‘Scheherazade’, well that’s artistic licence for you. 

Scheherazade  92x102cm oil on canvas

To me, the pug breed, embodies laid back confidence and charm, nothing like the neurotic maniac that the story actually describes, but there again this is a perfect example of how my work is not illustrative and the subject matter is a means to an end for me.  All these approaches to getting a body of work together are devices that provide me with a starting point and scaffolding on which to finally get down to what really painting is all about for me, and that is manipulating colours and paint around a two dimensional surface until they look and feel right.  And how do I know when a painting is finished.  Well its as simple as one day walking into my studio and realizing that I don’t have to repaint any particular passage, that is screaming out for me to change, one day it just rests well on the eye and I can then look at it objectively and then I know I can do no more for it and I move on to the next one.