Blue Lotus

Painted with ink and oil over paper mounted on board.

The last and largest piece completed for Blue Lotus, this painting is all about creation and downfall. It is meant to be read anti-clockwise from the eggs in the hand at the bottom of the composition, through self-realisation/corruption, deification and ego, before finishing with the tarot figures being taken to the next world by the dolphins.
Tangata manu (Bird-man) is the winner of a traditional competition by the inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), where competitors would swim out to a nearby island to retrieve the first sooty tern’s eggs of the season. The winner was the first one back with the eggs in tact, who would be crowned bird-man. The figure in the painting is my version of the cult’s deity, Make-Make. In its hand is held a nest of eggs and a chick, a copy of a wood and ivory sculpture which was found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Large scale painting of oil and ink on paper mounted on to board and framed.

Continuing the nature theme of the earlier Harvest pictures and adding a circular feel with water. The underworld monkey character from Chthonic Boom makes a cameo.

Legendary London life model Barrie, sadly no longer with us, appears in this painting, whose start point was a drawing from 2018.

Large scale oil and ink painting.