'It is hard work to be a living entity'
Oil and work on canvas
2021
This has probably been the longest-in-production painting of mine ever. It's been on the easel for years. And although I don't think of it as one of my best, I am really quite ok with it, after years of trying to clarify it.
And I have realised it is a very similar theme to a painting I did three decades ago when I was 24, 'Happy Worker'.
Both images express a kind of hapless, ignorant happiness with a task, despite the task being either brutal, or as in this work, self defeating.
A long time ago, I watched my then girlfriend jumping up and down with excitement, talking to a friend of hers. I looked down, and saw she was unknowingly crushing hundreds of ants as she so happily jumped. That moment has never left me, and probably never will.

© All Rights Reserved

oil on canvas

© All Rights Reserved

'Ruben'
Oil on canvas.
213cm x 121cm
2020

Tags:   painting oilpainting realism photorealism portrait

© All Rights Reserved

An illustration showing the effects of the passing of time, over 39 years at the Maggea Tennis Courts.
Note the disappearance of optimism, yet the growth of new flora.

© All Rights Reserved

Tags:   Approved

© All Rights Reserved