Oil on linen, ready to hang.

Signed on the back.

My bright and beautiful 'Joy in a Jar'painting is inspired simply by enjoying a bunch of poppies sitting on my kitchen bench early in 2023.
I had bought them from the market - just a handful of buds and stems. Over the following days I watched and observed how they transformed and 'came alive', somehow very expressive of human nature in their gestural habit

So delightfully vivid and happy one minute, but then so exquisitely limp and sad the next.
I felt connected and emotional watching them unfold daily - then hourly! From bold and bright to sorrowful and beaten. That same feeling of listening to a sad song when each word is speaking to you.
The Poppies are so incredibly beautiful and fragile. Expressing sadness, joy, melancholy and everything in between. I loved the challenge of capturing this complex 'bunch' throughout the year - and now I notice them everywhere.
This particular still life was from a bunch on display at my local cafe.
I worked in oils on this beautiful stretched Linen and was thrilled with this bold result, particularly of the reflective glass Jar. I see Joy!
This painting was one of the last in the series of 11 paintings and I think the experience in painting the poppies was of great advantage to this work.