Whish

Wishing Breeze - 80 x 80 cm. Oil on canvas. 2024

This is a work that wanted to be very decorative, sweet to the eye. The final result is a bit harsher than I had imagined, goes to show one never has any measure of control over the final feel of a painting.

The idea falls in the category of many `plant ladies` I’ve done and will hopefully continue to do. The mixing of taxonomic categories, really natural kingdoms in this instance, exerts a perennial fascination over me, and I don’t tire of exploring the visual possibilities of such hybridisation, and the symbolic tendrils it shoots towards myth and fable. 

The setup is indebted to religious imagery, particularly a Christ with thorns I saw in Toledo Cathedral, where the origin of the red stone frame resides.

 

I’ve added some pictures of the work in progress, here you can see the geometry holding the composition together and the successive stages, my approach to this painting was a bit Tetris-like, finishing separated zones in turns and getting a full idea only after the puzzle was done.