Mark Sheeky Artworks

About this painting

Painted as a dual portrait to accompany The Colours of Cheshire. My plan was to draw the portrait and use it for two paintings, thus saving on time. The plan went badly wrong, as this painting took eight months to complete.

We see a beautiful woman. A perspective grid sinks into the distance, and a black arc is present at the bottom too. A vine wraps around the arc and a bud, a balloon made from an onion is released. Her left side is empty, literally vanishing into the background and there is some delicate shading there.

The eye is central, and linked to the arc mathematically. The onion, free from its strangling vine indicates freedom, escape. The buds on the vines are still stuck there. The arc is part of a perfect circle that ends in flames. Is the escape doomed, or is the fate of the arc part of the past, not the future for the onion-balloon?

Perhaps the vine is one person, and the black arc it once entwined another? The shapes in the sky are mountains, a landscape from Antarctica but only when seen upside down.