About This Project

I know, I thought, I’ll do a landscape!

People like landscapes. They’re commercial. And punters are more likely to buy landscapes because, as the English would say, ‘they go with the wallpaper.’ Or, maybe, the ‘curtains.’

I don’t generally paint landscapes. Although I have a genuine liking for them in all their individual forms of expression and splendour.

So, I got hold of this big canvas and found, as a starting point, a landscape image I liked. The landscape image was a classic-capture of cascading-rainforest- greenery by Australian photographer David Millard which, in itself, is an absolute stand out.

I consider my painting style to be to be figurative and realistic. I don’t paint abstracts.

If I use someone’s photograph as a resource when it translates into paint on the canvas, like speaking a different language, it becomes something completely different. I don’t just copy it.

And the water too! That’s completely fictional.Totally made up. No pictorial reference just ‘off-the top-of-my-head.’

I typically take an obtuse view. Unable to ’let sleeping dogs lie’ I can’t resist changing things, adding other elements and swapping inherent aspects around. In this case Cactus!

Now I like cactus. They are incongruous, both odd yet disarming. A thing of beauty with sharp spikes capable of causing immense pain.

Being a diabetic I am used to needles but these succulents are an altogether different proposition. One thing’s for sure they don’t belong in a rainforest. Anyway, I used them in this work and, in an attempt to re-dress the balance, and return to all things ‘Australian’, I added a parrot!

A Sulphur Crested Cockatoo to be exact.

So, the whole affair is a mix of Australian and Mexican with a bit of imagination thrown in. I was going to call the piece ‘Australis Mexicalis.’ But that sounds a bit botanical. Or possibly medical!