Arabia Felix. 2011

Oil on canvas-board, 254x305mm.

The image was drawn using aquarelle pencils, then overpainted a number of times with layers of saturated colour. The final layer is translucent zinc white applied with a range of subtle textures reminiscent of white marble. It is inspired by the beautiful non-representational tiles found in Arabian architecture. This pattern is related to 'systems' painting, where in this case a strict predetermined sequence of marks form the basic structure.