Magnolia III Painting

The painting is based on an old photograph I found researching for a bookjacket artwork back in 1989. Ive used the pose to create my own version of it but I think the 1920's styling gives it a certain resonance. For me, I like the interplay of the abstract with the representational; how some parts of the painting when isolated and close up, look like abstract paintings, which draw the viewer in and yet from a distance have a sense of reality. The painting is textural, with a subtle background and paint swirls using a variety of paint mediums to create an intricate multi-layered surface, which is broken and reformed time and time again to create subtle turns of value and detail.