My new painting in the Metropolis series is called  “Metropolis and its heart”.

Metropolis and its heart, acrylics on canvas; 90cm x 90cm

I have been thinking for a long time about what constitutes the heart of the big city. What could it be? The technology and the evolutionary progress and development in the education of homo sapiens? Or our nature, the fact that we are sociable, a social and collective animal? However this is inconsistent with the reality – people who live in a small village or town are more sociable and less anonymous than those who live in big molochs. Living in a big city makes us 100% nameless, more private and more secret.

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Since three months ago, we have lived in Dunchideock in Lyalls Cottage. Dunchideock is a small, old village, with the house itself dating from around the 15th century. But, the house as a house is only a house; walls, a ceiling, thatched roof, and a floor. The most important part of the property is the garden: a beautifully fabulous, magical and bewitching place. The garden and the house are surrounded by all kinds of nature including horses, rabbits, deer, pheasants, foxes, and veritable smorgasbords of birds which all emerge silently from the forest, hills, meadows and fields. The scent of life: the scent of a real, simple, rural life.
All the nature, the garden, the air, the colours and the music of Dunchideock are inspirations for my new paintings. I spent almost my whole life in big, bigger, and even the biggest cities. If I had been told, say, four years ago, that I would have loved to live in a small village, I would have proclaimed that the person was totally irrational…

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