Anonymous Art

The North Vancouver Art Council's Anonymous Art show has come and gone for another year.  I had two paintings - one sold and one made a good Christmas present, so I'm happy with that result.

The painting "Darwin" was named after the life-drawing model. But as a biologist, I can never hear that name without thinking of Charles.  The Darwin of evolution fame was, I understand, quite sickly and physically weak after he returned with an undiagnosed tropical disease from his famous voyage of the Beagle.  Darwin the model, on the other hand, is clearly healthy and strong.  But I think this solid thoughtful pose also works well to represent Charles D's fantastic feat of mental strength and endurance in the 20+ years he spent developing his world-changing argument about evolution by natural selection.  Not to mention that the not-very-Victorian costume in this picture reminds us of our connection to those hairier primates.

The model for my other picture "We all work for them" was a bit more flighty.  But there are a bunch of them, and they show up outside my home office every morning at dawn for their daily wages - a handful of peanuts.  Which is about what I earn when I show up at my home office every morning at dawn...