CATHEDRAL CITY

yo! .. enigma.. innit! 

this is a change from my usual..

 

figures in a souk paintings..

 

there is no square of colour..

 

you might think that..

 

I would have painted over it..

 

and I might have..

 

but for the enigmatic figure..

 

in carmine..

 

If you look at the bigger picture you may see..

 

as I do..

 

a sort of gothic windowy effect..

 

going on in the background..

 

so having lived with it for a while now..

 

I see coventry cathedral..

 

and graham sutherland..

 

and basil spence..

 

and I am reminded..

 

that rumour has it..

 

that churchill allowed..

 

the nazis to bomb coventry..

 

rather than warn the city..

 

in order to protect the secret..

 

that the allies had broken..

 

the enigma code..

 

so I appear to have created this image..

 

which appears to be..

 

figures in an apocalypse..

 

in a style that harks back to the 1950's..

 

and a city where I went to art school..

 

I have always painted figures..

 

I used to get them from comic books..

 

children's books..

 

and from drawing from life..

 

now they just appear..

 

I only set out to paint..

 

there is no plan..

 

but the figures always appear..

 

it's an enigma jim.. 

 

 

 

this one was painted at the same time..

 

I like to work on several canvases at once..

 

as you can see..

 

we are back in the souk..

 

no square of colour though..

 

but this is definitely..

 

shoppers..

 

or at least the woman is..

 

she looks rich to me..

 

maybe a princess..

 

or leader of some sort..

 

the guy is maybe security..

 

who knows..

 

anyway not so enigmatic..

 

maybe pragmatic..

 

or maybe just..

 

automatic..

 

for the people..

 

 

BECOME YOURSELF

 

 

this is a quote from graham sutherland..

 

about how to become a painter..

 

I can tell..

 

It can take a lifetime to do this..

 

and it probably will..

 

 

figuresinasouk.com 

 

 

OH YEAH..

 

and when you look at francis bacon..

 

three figures at the base of a crucifixion 

 

spare a thought for graham..