An Imaginary Pantomime

This is a painting I did quite some time ago, and sold, and this is scanned off a scan. The picture was larger, so I don’t know quite how I did the original copy. My first thought on looking at it again were that the cat’s back legs were an aberration, but of course, this is a small person inside the cat and their legs would bend that way. I can’t work out what creature the dog (this dog obviously inhabited by another small person) is looking at, probably something from out of the sea – I lived then in Berwick, which looks out over the North Sea. It is strange to look at it as I cannot remember what was going through my mind when I painted it, though obviously the theatrical element came through posters I was doing for The Maltings, the local theatre. The red on the Berwick Lighthouse in the background hasn’t been painted – possibly this detail was finished before the picture was framed for exhibition… anyway, there it is. Maybe some of these elements will weave their way into a new story. I have come across a lot of old material, in a drawer, under a bed. Not much point in leaving it there, really, in the dark, under a bed where only one person has slept, for two nights, over the last year and a half…