“I was intrigued when working with this long haired brush. Like a sign writers brush. The full story is, that my Grandfather, who taught me to paint in the first place, had left, after his death, a few bits of painting equipment. Including a small brush with exceedingly long hair. The brush had special significance and I began using it to draw with and found the fluidity of line very useful. So, this painting began it’s life in landscape mode as a line painting of buildings,  an impression of the buildings around the Excel Center in London. I became a bit bogged down with that, turned the canvas into portrait mode and decided to become more fluid and create more organic and human like shapes. Eventually it suggested it may be a portrait of myself and it has echos of visualisations I had while undergoing hypnotherapy a few years ago. I feel emotionally tied to it somehow, like I found a way of being really honest in my painting. Not every line or curve is perfect and there are just enough of them. One of the things I admire in another artist is when there is enough painting to understand the subject and no more. And that’s what I achieved with this work”.  Jez Prior

 acrylic on canvas