The Abduction of Time

I have always mistrusted artworks whose subject is a young and attractive female, painted solely to portray those attributes. I wanted to paint a large-scale narrative painting whose heroine was an older woman, full of strength, and beautiful in her own right.

I posed my model looking up towards the skylight in my studio, and fell in love with the haunting way the light reflected off her eyes. From this pose, the composition for “The Abduction of Time” emerged; a subversive nod to the plethora of Baroque paintings which depict the abduction of helpless young women, faces upturned in similar fashion.

I set the composition in a cloudy outdoor environment, a reference to the Naturalist painters whose works and colour palette I love. The final painting was fused together from studies made in my studio, and landscape studies made in the wild Moors near my home.

People's Choice Award at the Portrait Society of America International Competition 2023;

Top 20 Finalist and Exceptional Merit Award

Honorable Mention in the Art Renewal Center International Salon 2023

Exhibited with the Art Renewal Center and auctioned at Sotheby's, NY, 14th-24th July 2023