These works are an exploration of fluid forms in hues of blue. Stemming from an interest in Asian landscape painting traditions of Shin Shau (China), and Sumi-e (Japan). The reduced palette allows a vast range of tonal variation, which maintain a fresh, lively quality to the image. The colour Blue has resonated across time and cultures. As diverse as Celtic body paint, Renaissance Marian drapery, Dutch Delftware or James Dean denim. Be it splashed, stroked, stippled or splattered in the Modernist art of Kandinsky, Picasso, Pollock or Klein. Be it Indigo, Cerulean, Prussian or Ultramarine. Evocative and evanescent.

Influences; Hokisai, Twombly, Rauschenberg, Diebenkorn, Emin, Dumas.

SEMELE (and the twice born)

Acrylic & aerosol on board,

80 x 80 cm

Semele, also called Thyone, in Greek mythology, a daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, at Thebes, and mother of Dionysus (Bacchus) by Zeus. and the goddess of the Bacchic frenzy which seized female devotees of the god during the Orgies.

Semele’s liaison with Zeus enraged Zeus’s wife, Hera, who, disguised as an old nurse, coaxed Semele into asking Zeus to visit her in the same splendour in which he would appear before Hera. Zeus had already promised to grant Semele her every wish and thus was forced to grant a wish that would kill her: the splendour of his firebolts, as god of thunder, destroyed Semele. Zeus saved their unborn child, Dionysus, from the womb and kept him in his thigh until the baby was ready to be born (hence, the twice born). The story that Dionysus, himself immortal, descended into Hades after reaching maturity and brought Semele back, and she too became an immortal or even a goddess is found on an Attic black-figure hydria from the Leagros Group (c. 520 BC) and in Pindar’s Olympian ode 2.

Three Graces (after Rudens)

The Three Graces (After Rubens)

The myth

In most sources the Graces are said to be daughters of Zeus and Hera, and were named Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Talia, or Brightness, Joyfulness, and Bloom.

The Graces were associated with generosity and reciprocity. Writing about the concept of reciprocity in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states that good deeds should be repaid in kind: "This is why we set up a shrine of the Graces in a public place, to remind men to return a kindness". Thus, statues of the Graces were erected near springs as a way of giving back to nature.

It is interesting that there is an echo of this today in both the Italian and Spanish languages, where the words grazie and gracias mean "thank you" - and are used to show gratitude for something received.

The Graces are a gift, we could say, of a plentiful idea of life and the world personified in the female body. In the mythological sources, beginning with Hesiod’s Theogony, the Graces were frequent companions of Venus (The goddess of love, beauty and desire), adding to the love and fertility that she personifies, a component of charm, pleasure, and joy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Graces_(Rubens)#/media/File:The_Three_Graces,_by_Peter_Paul_Rubens,_from_Prado_in_Google_Earth.jpg

Sanctuary Blue

🔴 SOLD

Acrylic & aerosol on board

32 x 32 cm

(Framed Tasmanian Oak)

Sanctuary Blue #2

Acrylic & aerosol on board

40 x 40 cm (Framed Tasmanian Oak)

$550

Bacchus and Ariadne (After Titian)

Acrylic and aerosol on board

62 x 62 cm. (Framed Tasmanian Oak)

$2500

The myth begins with the hero Theseus journey to the island of Crete to slay the Minotaur. With the help of the princess Ariadne, daughter of king Minos, the creator of the labyrinth (apartment block) falls in love with the hero, providing him the thread that enables his escape from the maze and back to safety, and her loving embrace. After defeating the Minotaur, the couple escape , however, on their long voyage back to Athens, they stop to rest on the island of Naxos (Hollywood sign on the bottom right). While there, Ariadne sleeps, and Theseus abandons her. Typical alpha male jerk behaviour. When Ariadne wakes, distraught and confused by her abandonment, the god of wine, Bacchus (the ‘Passiona’ sign) and his inebriate entourage come upon her, and he instantly falls in love with the recently single princess. Eventually they marry, and Ariadne becomes the fun loving god of wine and ecstasy immortal consort. Bacchus promises Ariadne a crown of stars as a wedding gift. He takes the laurel wreath from her and throws it into the sky, where it becomes the constellation Corona Borealis or Northern crown (the blue aerosol arc). The coming together of Bacchus and Ariadne symbolises the crossing of the divine and the mortal. The representation also alludes to the notion of Ariadne receiving physical and spiritual renewal through the hands of her saviour, the god of pleasure and passion. Many artists over time have depicted this myth at the moment of Ariadne’s tragic abandonment. In Titian’s ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’ he choose to convey a sense of joy and happiness. By showing the exact moment of their meeting, the painting evokes the idea of letting go of the past, and turning towards the future. To embrace the possibility of eternal pleasures as the new lovers approach one another, and the possibilities that their blissful future holds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacchus_and_Ariadne#/media/File:Titian_Bacchus_and_Ariadne.jpg