Blue Lotus // Catalogue

The deceased figure’s physical being is going back to the earth. But will her spirit make it into heaven or be banished to the other world? And in any case, don’t they have more fun down there than those of us who live above ground?

The first painting with more than one figure allowed me to develop the idea of interplay between two figures along with the contrasts of light and dark in their various guises.

Large square painting of oil and Indian ink on treated paper drawings mounted on board.

Loosely inspired by imagery from a passage in Greek myth where an island of people is wiped out before they are repopulated in numbers after a plea to Zeus, with the transformation of ants as they fell from a tree.

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 oil and ink painting.

From a life drawing at Vaulty Towers, a small room below the pub, where the model is always close, resulting in great angles and foreshortening. The bisection which divides the picture was either a rug or the skirting board, and I used it in this early painting as a first exploration into the duality between the conscious and the unconscious mind which reoccurs in subsequent Blue Lotus pictures.

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.

Life drawing on paper, treated with varnish and embellished with Indian ink and oil paint.

Oil and ink on paper on board.

Informed by the inversion of a life drawing to give the appearance of a half-bird, half-man creature with wings spread.
Inspired by traditional North American art, the Phoenix rising, and the pull of an Egyptian sun.

Preserver of life in the form of boats, and vessel for which to take the body to the next life, as casket back into the soil.

Another in the Harvest series recalling memories of nature, the inevitable cycle of growth and death, and endless toil on the land.

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

This painting’s protagonist, Poseidon, was widely credited with the creation of the horse, but Rhea claimed she first spat a foal into existence and fed it to Kronos to fool him into thinking he was eating one of her offspring. Poseidon’s claim of the invention of horse racing, however, is not disputed.

This was the first painting in which I thought about trying to articulate the space that exists between the physical and the spiritual experience, resulting in the violet shapes coming from the organs and the spine. The colour is used through this collection of paintings to signpost the spiritual element, developing from this early form into the more recognisably figurative later on.

One of the earliest paintings in the exhibition, in the formative stages of development of the half-man half-reptile creature which occurs and is refined later on.

Oil and ink on paper mounted on board and framed.

Ink, oil on paper mounted on board.

Painted with ink and oil over paper mounted on board.

Thinking about evolution, from reptilian prehistory through birds and into the mammalian realm.

In this painting I wanted to place the whole idea of taking flight within one body, so that not only the external tools of flying like feathers, but also the infinite space of the sky, was within the form, self sufficient and self contained.

A painting which took inspiration from Greek myths, with Hera’s rebellion (and Zeus’s revenge) centre stage, while Poseidon’s equine pursuit of Demeter and Hermes’ bark-shoed theft of cattle from Apollo also feature.

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

Oil and ink on paper and board

The first of the Harvest series, evolution of the loose sky mark.

A mysterious and mystical plant revered and feared through the ages.