Flight
Clive Hicks-Jenkins
2013 – mixed media – 56 x 76 cms
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The painting has been completed. The bird, as discussed in the comments boxes of a previous post, was added as the finishing touch. Now all that remains is for it to be properly photographed and dispatched to my framer. I’ve hugely enjoyed taking some of the ideas that had evolved from the animation, and turning them into this work. Many more are planned to follow. I’ve already laid out the sketch for a large portrait of Joseph and the Princess, and another sketch in which she’s won by a lost hand of cards, and indeed is revealed emerging from their fan-like spread, a reference to Botticelli’s Venus posing coyly on a similarly fan-shaped scallop shell. The subject of poor Soldier Joseph and his travails has ignited my imagination, and when that happens there’s only one place for me to be: in front of the easel!
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Detail from Flight: Joseph’s soul in the form of a bird, already untethered and soon to be lost, flutters at his heels.
Clive Hicks-Jenkins' Artlog: 
Its a good bird and I like the placement and direction, flying out of the picture frame, a kind of release, that is the therapeutic aspect of the act of painting a picture, I think.
Hard to believe how much time has flown since the retrospective, and here you are doing very fresh work, different from anything in that show… And now it is after midnight where you are, and already your birthday. Have a lovely one. xo Marly
It’s such a lovely image, I could linger over it for ages, the gorgeous colour, the fairly tale garden and Joseph and the princess so beautifully rendered, it gives me a calm, warm feeling inside. That little bird is subtly done, it really works.
Great to see how the reworking of The Soldier’s Tale images has taken root and is throwing up such vigorous and exciting images – whatever you’re on I want some.
Ha ha! Well I can assure you that it’s nothing illicit. Whatever fuels me is all-natural, a part of my chemistry, and the day it stops working I guess will be the day I stop going to the easel.
Thanks Phil. I appreciate your comment.
Well done Clive, a lovely image. I like it that Joseph has his flight arranged though he doesn’t know it..
He’s a simple soul, so wrapped up in that Princess and dreams of happiness.
I love it, the soul flying from the sole…yes and the position really is great there.
I sometimes wondered if she was real – the princess – or just the ‘princess of his imagination’ the woman he would search for eternally but never find. The woman, won in a deck of cards resigned to her fate with her heart switched off and poor Joseph trying to make her the princess he desperately wants her to be. How sad…
Have a great day tomorrow! There is a fun something in the post but I’m afraid it will be a tad late sorry. Still it will make the birthday last longer.
Ha ha! Reeled you in then, huh? (I love it when viewers start creating their own stories for the paintings. That to me is what it’s all about.)
Thank you for remembering my birthday, Jacqui. That’s very kind of you.
(-;
xxx
All this work is just stunning, you really are the Maestro Clive!
Have a fabulous birthday, wishes sent today, in case of oversights tomorrow!
Xxxxxx
We’re having supper with friends. A quiet affair, but that’s what I wanted.
Maestro! Love it! Thank you Lorrie. (-;