Description
Bouquet II – poppies in a metallic light
Painting on canvas packs the square almost edge to edge with scarlet poppies, each petal built as its own raised ring that throws a small shadow: decorative painting in which the relief does as much work as the colour. The flowers rise from a brown-gold vase in every direction, and the ground behind them is silver-grey and worked rough.
Technique and texture
The paint is laid in thick palette-knife layers, so a petal is a physical ring rather than a drawn shape. The ground is smoothed with wide silver and white sweeps and then flicked with white droplets from a loaded brush. The vase is built from close horizontal bands of brown and gold that read as thrown pottery.
The motif
There are more than twenty open heads, with closed buds set among them on thin stalks. The flowers are flattened and turned square to the viewer with no foreshortening at all, which is what keeps the whole square decorative rather than illusionistic. Leaves and stems are grey-green and barely separate from the ground, so the red carries alone.
Setting and placement
A square settles a wall by itself, and this one gives it a single hot centre. Hang it where the furniture is already grey and white and the red has nothing to argue with.
- Technique: hand-painted painting on canvas, thick relief layers laid with a palette knife
- Palette: scarlet, white, grey-green, brown-gold, silver-grey
- Ideal for: living rooms, dining rooms
- Character: dramatic, warm, decorative
Choose the size that suits your wall.
