(oil on canvas 10”x 12”)
This portrait started out as a study from life of a Danish singer who used to drop by my studio in Bedford Square, Brighton during the summer of 2005. However I began to feel uninspired by her so stopped painting her but continued to sort of mess around on the canvas for the next year or so without her being there. One day it struck me that the face emerging from the mess of pigments which I kept scraping down was an image not of the Danish singer but my 18 year old daughter whom I’d never seen (not even a photo) and whose whereabouts were unknown driven purely by emotion and instinct and my memories of her mother whom I knew briefly in 1987 during the seven years I was living in a Cambridge bedsit after returning from Sudan struggling to write “Red over Blue”, with no money and often very sick from cancer and bleeding ulcers which, 21 years later when it was diagnosed by a scan I discovered were probably caused by a rare brain tumour I was born with and which has obviously helped make my whole life interesting and challenging;) Working on my novel “Red over Blue” saved my life and my soul. However it was another 20 years before the final draft of the book was completed and published. I often wonder about Kathryn-Jayne and whether she is anything like this imagined portrait which, but for that Danish singer might never have happened. Life is full of weird and wonderful chance connections!:)