This is an abstract painting, based on the classic 'Popular Penguin' paperback books, a style icon. I wanted to take the original format of the book cover and transform it, distorting it with thick brushstrokes, abstracting the text into random lettering, retaining the essence of the original inspiration but also becoming something new.
The paintings in this series were created over many sessions. The blue areas have been built up in five layers, leaving marks and splashes visible. The surface is impasto and textural, with many spatters and signs of overpainting and reworking.
Penguin used blue for their non-fiction 'Pelican' series of paperbacks.
Former director of the Art Gallery of NSW, Edmund Capon, said of the first painting in this series, " an evocative imagining of the familiar Penguin Paperback...it was a painting we all liked very much for its rich texture, its sense of memory and its sort of nostalgic humour"
In terms of the application of the paint, I would cite the work of Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline as inspirations.
These striking paintings will look fantastic in any home.