Florence

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https://artellite.co.uk/sites/default/files/p/florence_eye.jpg

By Julie Bennett
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Dimensions (HxWxD):

100 × 100 × 2 cm

Materials:

Oil on canvas

Primary Medium:

Oil Painting

Medium
2019
Signed on Back
Ready to display
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Music plays a large part in my creative process. It has had a profound influence on my practice born out of a lifelong obsession that included working at a record shop in my teens and later as a graphic designer for music magazines. I painted 'Florence' whilst listening to the music of Florence + the Machine. The lead singer, Florence Welch is a singer-songwriter from south London. I have long been captivated by Florence's image, similar in a way to the pre-Raphaelite style adopted by John William Waterhouse in the early 1900s of graceful women with free-flowing red hair wearing see-through gowns. Florence's main topics for her lyrics include love, death, and mythology which are recurring themes in Waterhouse's paintings. As a proud south Londoner myself, I was fascinated to read of Florence's upbringing in Camberwell and her drunken student adventures at my old art college, Camberwell College of Arts. Florence is a portrait of a young woman proud of her London roots, she promotes London internationally to the world through her music. Even on her album 'High As Hope', she celebrates being a Londoner with a song about her Camberwell days ‘South London Forever'. My work has been described as gestural and emotionally charged which I feel captures the essence of Florence's spirit. When making this painting, I tried to capture Florence's passion for life and music with each brush mark. When performing live, Florence appears almost like a flame herself, darting around the stage, flowing red hair and fire like gowns setting alight to all she touches. Her performance appears so uncomplicated and intuitive just like my brush strokes. I used fire like colours to create her hair and skin tones always leaning towards red in my palette. I embrace the fluidity of paint, allowing it to drip in parts so the immediacy of the paint-handling celebrates the free-flowing nature of the medium and the subject.

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