I've been painting these 'Unpopular Penguins' for over 3 years now (this is number 348), and I've been wanting to make some of them more abstract, less dependent on the original design of the Penguin paperback book covers. This painting is more fluid and expressive, while still having an impasto surface built up of many layers of paint, like the earlier paintings in the series. I like to use the original books as a starting point, but to try different colours, textures, shapes, levels of distortion and abstraction, and so forth. See how far I can push them in various directions.
The paintings in this series are held in collections around the world, and have been in various art prizes and prominent Australian galleries. Edmund Capon, former director of the Art Gallery of NSW, said of the first painting in the series, 'an evocative imagining of the familiar Penguin Paperback...it was a painting we all liked very much for its rich texture, its sense of memory and its sort of nostalgic humour'
This painting is on a stretched canvas, with painted sides, and it is ready to hang without needing framing.
For lovers of art, books, and classic design.