More about the "In the garden series"

The In the garden series actually began life as an extesion of or morphing out of the "Mythical beings series". I started to add a background of plants and other garden like furniture. I realised at the time that this added a sense of mystery and connection to nature that some of the paintings in the Mythical beings series lacked. An accessible, more easy to understand and connect with, context for these extraordinary beings to exist in if you like. I began to see the that the environment and the context that it lent to the images was very much a part of the subject of the painting.

It is also around this time that the Covid pandemic hit and I could no longer go outdoors to draw images of people. I started to seek out other ways of getting information for my paintings. I realised that the internet has a wealth of pictures of nearly naked and often very beautiful men readily available so I began to nick these images and started to put them in the works. I also started buying magazines that featured gardens and flowers. Another source was the idea of the Folly (a building that has no true function but who's sole intention is to add to the mystery and excitement of the landscape) I got a hold of a good few books on the subject and started to add these building to my work.

Of particular interest to me was that I did not want to ignore the fact that I was using found images essentially pasted on top of one anouther to create these mythical landscapes of people, plants, gardens and buildings. Retaining this 2D feel to the images has become a focus of the work and lends itself to the idea that these are fantasy landscapes grown out of desire, dreams and wishful thinking.