The whale's back in the bay. Stopping off on his way to London.
But he's bigger this time, a lot bigger. I originally painted this 15 x30cm using miniature techniques. This new one is made with oil paint on linen and its 102 x152cm.
It has sold but will still be at the London art fair in the Crane Kalman stand. From the 16th to the 20th of January.

I went to uni in Falmouth. The natural harbour there is the second deepest in the world. I often wondered what lay beneath the surface.
I never actually saw a whale in the bay but apparently a few weeks after I painted the original a big hump back turned up there! So I've painted him again and we'll see what happens. ;) I did however see a lot of oil tankers and the occasional freight ship, they would sit in the bay for days waiting for oil prices to change.
On the one hand freight containers provide a great excuse for a painter to get a good range of saturated colours out.
In this painting it's also a symbol for commerce and everything man made that takes place on the horizontal worldly plane.
Unfortunately in reality large wild animals have been pushed to the fringes by the actions of man. I heard the other day that apparently only 2% of land mammals are wild, the rest is made up of us and livestock. This painting is an attempt (in the imaginative realm at least ) to readdress the balance and swing the proportions back the other way. It is a reminder that we are just one of 8.7 million other species on this planet we all call home.
The whale is a symbol of mystery, one that may reveal its self if we take some time out from all the hullabaloo out there. Be still and go into the blue.