WASP!!!

Whilst thinking about further abstraction I had a rather unfortunate incident with a wasp… Well, more to the point the wasp had an unfortunate incident with my coffee whilst I was sitting outside at a café. The wasp (who may have had a caffeine addiction) dropped into my half finished coffee cup. It struggled at first and looked very pathetic, while this was happening I took a few photographs with my phone before throwing the remaining coffee into the nearby bush releasing the now somewhat upset and high insect.

Upon looking at the images later I liked the conflict and tension in the frame, the struggle of the wasp, the dissatisfaction by me at the expense of throwing away half a coffee but also in the combination of colour and texture on show, the hard white cup, the brown liquid and the furry, if not stingy, nature of the wasp, an interesting dichotomy. Taking the image further with an abstraction in mind I decided to paint the image. I chose to use an old 60x60cm square canvas which had a heavy textured finish from a previous painting I did. The texture would increase the complexity of the new painting and also give it a deeper colour gradient. The original photo was cropped to a point it was not at first obvious it was a cup of coffee. After completing the initial paining with the mixture of browns and whites I decided to add the wasp which obviously moved it away from abstraction and directly into the path of representation, however, the zoomed focus and the large scale of the work gives it an interesting feel and narrative. It is yet to be shown so will update on any comments or concerns.