Joe's Garden Series

This week I thought that you might be interested to see a couple of paintings from a recent ‘garden’ series. I posted the first picture on Facebook and WKAG members sent some very perceptive and encouraging comments. 

I wanted the picture to have a ‘warm’ feeling and a sense of nostalgia. I have used a colour scheme from those 1930’s railway posters advertising visits to scenic areas of the uk. So the image through the archway is from such a poster for Cader Idris in Snowdonia. There are also references to cubism, Bonnard (pattern)  the military(pentagon), and life and death (the Passion flower and Dahlia) and the physical act of painting itself. The cube shape, bottom left, also has military, medical,(Red Cross)  connotations. To the back left hand side of the painting is a middle-aged man dancing on a stool. This is from a painting of the same name by a tutor of mine at the RA Schools Roderic Barrett. He was a fabulous teacher and the painting interests me because of its sense of humour and innate silliness

 Middle - aged man, Roderic Barrett,  1973 - 76, 120 x 46cm, oil on canvas

I attach a second painting from this series.