Atropos and the Apple Painting

There were many technical challenges to overcome in the making of this piece, probably my finest work to date. Not the least of these difficulties lay in making the outer frame, an essential component of the artwork itself, and which had to match the painted tromp-loeil inner frames. The wood was cut from a large, fresh-fallen, willow limb and of course, being unseasoned, the wood curved alarmingly upon cutting, something to be avoided usually, but here it gives the frame a remarkable concave appearance when viewed from either side. A powerful illusion of depth leads the eye to believe that this is not a painting at all, but in fact the threshold to some impossible space. A friend turned up at the studio one day, visibly excited about something and revealed a deer skull he'd brought back from the Lake District. What an amazing object! I immediately set to work drawing and painting it. The wooden inner frames were derived from some off-cuts of a picture frame I'd made the year before. I'd kept them around because I liked the texture of the bark. As this painting picture began to take shape, my girlfriend was roped in to pose for a couple of sessions, which was all I needed to render the hand and arm. She nearly fainted from having to stand still for a couple of hours!

Painting:Oil on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:27.5 W x 38.5 H x 3 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.