Prom Queens
Little Wild Things — Collection No. 4
The fourth painting in my Little Wild Things collection, Prom Queens is a gathering of wild flowers in fiery reds, burnt oranges and unexpected flashes of cool blue.
Three red wild flowers run diagonally through the centre of the painting, their forms reminiscent of poppies, while burnt-orange sunflowers occupy three of the corners. A printed blue stem runs through the middle, weaving its way between the flowers and adding a cooler note to the warmth surrounding it.
Real botanical forms are printed into the underlying layers, then worked over with acrylic, pencil and charcoal. The result is a lively meeting of printed and painted marks, where the flowers seem to emerge from the layers rather than simply sit on the surface.
The painting has a warmth that feels almost like the last glow of a garden at the end of a summer day: vivid, untamed and still holding its own little sparks of life.
Running through the work, barely legible, is the line of prose:
“The embers of the wild garden.”
Like words half-hidden in the undergrowth, the phrase is there to be discovered rather than announced. A small reminder that even when the brightest colours begin to fade, something of the wild remains.
Prom Queens is the fourth of eight one-of-a-kind original paintings in my Little Wild Things collection, each exploring the character, colour and unexpected beauty of the natural world.
Mixed media: original botanical printing, acrylic, pencil and charcoal
Paper: 300gsm watercolour paper
Size: 5 × 7 inches (13 × 18 cm)
Edition: 1 of 1 — original artwork
Presentation: unmounted and unframed, supplied as is
Details: titled, signed and dated on the reverse
