"The Traveller"

I am presently working on a new large piece, an oil painting entitled "The Traveller". I have made about a 100 source images in order to create the sketches and layout of the design for this painting. This has involved the creation of 20 individual finished drawings that are incorporated into the final work. The drawings were made especially for the cloth that lays in front of the central figure and they depict a narrative that is open to interpretation by the viewer. The cloth has upon it a number of items which I have sculpted including a heart, a kylix, a bird and a dagger. There are other objects too, including an illustrated book, all of which encourage the viewer to find their own meaning within the piece. The Piece is quite large at 152 cm x 116cm.

The idea emerged from a sketch that began the idea when I was in Rome...... the painting has brought it much further. The idea came about when I was looking at roman floor mosaics where the mosaic floor would represent objects that would fall on the floor in a kind of play upon what was real and what wasn't. There were a number of these mosaics I saw it seemed to be a genre all of its own. Then the idea developed further and I saw in my minds eye a woman who was carrying a cloth on a journey with Her but when she opened out the cloth onto the ground the objects within it were not what you might expect. Like the mosaic the oil painting plays upon what we regard as real and what is not. Each object holds an important insight into what we regard as real about our "self", this is of course open to your interpretation .