Brief Moments of Happiness

I began this still life by thinking purely about visual composition, simply looking for shapes, colours and textures amongst the various items collected in the studio. Once arranged I felt dissatisfied that there didn’t seem to be a narrative to connect the objects. Referring to a book about the historical language of painting and the meanings attached to various subject matter, I discovered that gourds (a category of vegetable into which I include squash) represented the transient nature of happiness.

Armed with this new piece of information I began to see meaning in the separate islands of colour created by the chopped segments of the squash and the representation of each physical piece with its reflection – making visible the sides hidden from view. There’s also a lot of interesting distortion concerning distance and reality within the heart of the painting. Suddenly I see narrative everywhere. Finding meaning in art is an intensely personal thing though, so it’s also perfectly valid to simply enjoy the shapes, colour and texture.

Some progress shots and details of the brushwork.