Pictured top: Moonlight Swim, acrylic on canvas. (Progress view). From the current suite of works provisionally titled Flowers of the Femmes Fatales.
In this instance, the flower associated with my protagonist, namely a water lily, appears as a stylised motif on her bathing cap. Its design was adapted from a vintage knitting pattern that was sourced online. (See below).
On my morning walks by the Yarra River in Melbourne I pass a similar ‘No Swimming’ sign to the one portrayed in the painting.
Directly below are a series of developmental views of Moonlight Swim.
The work is a descendent of two early works (pictured below), both of which share similar iconography: The Third Time, 1995, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm (collection: the artist) and Not Drowning, 1996, oil pastel, 160 x 120 cm. (Collection Grafton Regional Gallery, NSW. Acquired through the Jacaranda Drawing Award 1996).
