Come on Pilgrim

This is an expressive, pop art painting of John Wayne, The Duke, based on a cover of Life Magazine from 1965 The surface of the paint is impasto, with bold brushwork. As with most of my works in the last few years, I'm interested in rendering a neat image - in this case a photograph with text - in a more chaotic, painterly, energetic way. The face is painted reasonably close to the way it was in the photograph. but the shirt and red scarf are much freer, just a few fast dashes and areas of colour. The face is painted in Payne's Grey, over a layer of Prussian Blue, and the dark blue still comes through in places. It's a dynamic reinterpretation of a 20th century icon of design.

Please note that the sides of the canvas are painted, and it is ready to hang without needing to be framed.

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Painter from the Blue Mountains. I've had paintings in the Sulman Prize 2012‚ Mosman Prize 2012‚ Calleen Art Prize 2013‚ Gallipoli Art Prize 2014 & 2016, Gosford Art Prize 2018 & 2018, the ANL Maritime Art Prize 2018 and the 2019 Hawkesbury Art Prize (winner). In the last nine years I've had a lot of success with abstract paintings, drawing inspiration from the covers of 'Popular Penguin' paperback books, from the classic Monopoly board, Uno cards, and other pop culture icons. The paintings are distorted representations of the subject matter, transformed with thick brushstrokes and often random lettering, retaining the essence of the original but also becoming something new. I have had sell out shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Singapore. My art has been featured in Art Edit magazine, The Grand Designs Australia Sourcebook and the Financial Review. PLEASE NOTE - commissions now closed for 2024. Thank you!