"Silk road findings", 50 cm x 50 cm. Sold.

There is this temptation of wanting to find things just underneath the surface (of landscape, of a picture, some artwork) that work as a reminder of a story or something that really did happen.

Where I live, there is this double carriage way called the Silk Road. People used it to transport silks - yard and woven cloth - along it. A lot of its history is not that easily revealed ... and I like to think of the parallelisms with the Silk Road in Central Asia.

134 cm x 65 cm, including the frame.

A thin layer of fabric carries delicate drawings in thread. These float above a layer of acrylic abstracts hinting at a landscape. The scenes are taken from places in Manchester town centre.... try to find the statue of Queen Victoria.

Dolphins can' t really swim on top of houses, or can they...

This is of a very delicate material nature.... several transparent sheets of fabric and each have detailed "drawings" on them made out of stitches with fine black yarn. All on a canvas on a frame, measuring about 50 cm x 50 cm. I'd have a whole wall full of these, and depending on how the light shines on them, they look different.

What about using this "technique" with stitched images based on  photographs of the same person, but from different times in their lives, .... you could keep adding new drawings, as life goes on ... and have a "stack" of stitched drawings for each member of the family....

Architect Barbara Olbrich (www.barbaraolbrich.de) has asked me to produce a large piece (actually a triptych) that reflects her work that is strongly based on Bauhaus Architecture.

These are quite large, filling a square of about 160 cm by 160 cm, with each one 51 cm x 160 cm x 4 cm. All are acrylic paint, glue, thread, sand and fabric on canvas.

This and the two pieces below are on canvas, measuring 50 cm x 50 cm x 4 cm.