Friday 15 January 2016

"Look out my window and what do I see . . ." David Bowie and Nativity windows

Here are the most recent in the occasional window painting series.
First, another 'In Memoriam', this time for David Bowie. I scraped off the Nativity scene on Monday morning and painted, in a state of disbelief, with the excellent BBC Radio 6 Music coverage of Bowie's death and listeners' responses on in the background, his portrait from the 1977 'Low' LP cover in its place. His Space Oddity / Changes / Velvet Goldmine EP was one of my first records and he's been a constant musical presence for the last 40 + years.
This painting was for my wife Julie - a lifelong and very upset Bowie fan -  as well as for me, and of course for anyone passing by who noticed .
As before, it's painted in acrylics on the inside of the glass of our bay window. Call by and take a look.


 
 
 
On the same window over Christmas I did just a detail of the magnificent Adoration of the Shepherds by the Genoese painter Bernardo Strozzi (1581 - 1644). I drew on the whole scene in chinagraph but having painted just the middle section - the Madonna and Child - I decided to leave it at that.  I like the look of artwork where the main part is well-finished but with rough, torn or in some way unfinished edges. Because of those strange sketch books I had as a child, perhaps ; a sort of tracing paper that you scribbled over and the picture was revealed, or those where you painted water on and a pale coloured picture appeared ? Or was it those Gerald  Incandela photographs where he painted developer on the photographic paper that I tried to emulate in the darkroom as a teenager ?
Anyhow, the original painting in it's entirety is in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore if you're in the area . . .