Swans at The Serpentine

Perfecting the art of reflection

Oil on linen board, 20x20cm

Recently I have been spending a lot more time in Hyde Park. I love walking around the Serpentine and getting away from feeling like I am in the city. My art practice predominantly focuses on painting moments as memories. Reminding myself that I don’t have to live in a fantastical world to find beauty in the everyday. In some ways, reflections in water remind me of how we view memories: always slightly distorted from the original moment, always missing something, part over exaggerated, forever something lost in translation. 

The swans on the Serpentine made a perfect excuse for me to explore this further in this study. Each painting in a linen canvas (20x20cm), primed with 2 layers of clear gesso, each canvas has been layered with multiple thin washes of oil paints to give a dreamy gradient background without losing texture of the original linen canvas. Using thicker paint, I have then created the swans and their reflections.

Details:

• 3 oil studies of swans
• Oil on linen canvas
• Each painting is 20x20cm (22x22cm with the frame)
• framed in black, hardwood frame