This artwork reflects on this business of hurtling thru space at a terrific speed, even when we’re standing still on Earth. It’s intriguing. Even whilst sitting reading a newspaper the Earth is spinning around at over 1600 Ks an hour. And to add to that our journey around the sun each year takes place at about 30,000 Ks an hour. As if this wasn’t enough to ruffle your hair I find that our entire galaxy, our Milky Way, complete with our Earth and solar system, spins around at some 220 kilometres per second, or around 800,000 Ks an hour.
It’s a sobering thought to think on this and I will leave it there. But it did occur to me that on the micro level, inside us, we have atoms and molecules whizzing around too. In short: everything is moving in constant motion.
I had sketched studies of the seated figure several times and was looking for a suitable background when I remembered a book I'd read, back in the 1980's, on Chaos Theory. I remembered an intriguing pattern called Penrose Tiling that has a strange, dynamic visual movement that won’t keep still. It was a curious artwork to paint with the background gently shifting around which in part made the figure look even more static.