Strange Bedfellows

Description

Limited Edition Reproduction of 100 Only

OK, here’s the story behind how this painting came into being.

I’d this 152.4 cms by 50.8 cms (or 60 inches by 20 inches in old money) linen canvas but not a clue about what would end up on it.

I’d also collected a bunch of characters. They were all visual images, head and shoulders mostly. Some I’d drawn, others I’d photographed. Some I’d researched and used previously in paintings, others had ended up being rejected and unused.

But I liked and had an affinity with each and every one of them.

And when I placed these images, these characters, these faces side by side, in other words ‘juxtapsed’ them, they took on the identity of a couple. A bit like creating characters in my very own ‘soap opera.’

For example the elderly woman holding a photo (bottom left) stands in a rural landscape which is actually North Wales, where I was born. Who is the man in the photo and why has she that expression on her face? That’s for you to decide!

They, like everyone here, are couples captured in time, caught up in their own particular relationship, their own particular situations and surroundings – no matter how odd they may seem.

Hence the title ‘Strange Bedfellows.’

And hopefully their story, the yin and yang behind what brought them together unfolds and ignites the imagination of the viewer. I’m not sure I understand the relationships. But as the one who introduced them, the one who ‘set them up,’ I also became their confidant, their ‘keeper of secrets.’

Strange Bedfellows? Simply let your imagination get the better of you!