«Picasso Dreams»

In August 1911 the Mona Lisa vanished from the Louvre. The police, hunting for leads, questioned Pablo Picasso. A thief he knew had sold him a couple of ancient Iberian statuettes stolen from the same museum, and Picasso, scared, was questioned and then cleared. The painting itself turned up in 1913, and that story is where my picasso pop art begins.

A man who got in trouble for owning other people's treasures is the starting point of this painting. Picasso did borrow from everywhere. So I let him borrow from me.

A young woman with pink hair and freckles rests her cheek on her hand and looks straight at you. Her face is sliced into strips that drift out of line, and black bars cross her forehead, mouth and neck like a censor's pen. Under her eyes she wears patches covered in a luxury-house monogram. Her tank top is white and thick with paint, and her arms and chest are inked with Picasso. I can see a Weeping Woman, painted in 1937, with her tears and clenched teeth. The other tattoos are cubist faces and bodies in red, green and blue. Small coloured blocks float on the black wall behind her.

Those blocks are a bow to Mondrian, whose Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow dates from 1930. Warhol turned faces into surfaces in 1962 with his Marilyn pictures, and I like that pop art can do the same to a sleeve of tattoos. A luxury logo and a cubist portrait are both images people consume without looking twice.

It is an original pop art painting, 120x90 cm, oil and acrylic on canvases, and it works well as statement wall art above a sofa.

Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email.

A hand-finished lithograph of this work exists too, and you can order it through Instagram or email.