Is It Pop Art?

Roy Lichtenstein is one of the major influences in my artistic life. I am drawn to the simplicity and the abstract qualities. I am drawn to the childlike colourations. I am drawn to the graphic purity which permeates his work. I feel his influence very strongly in this painting. You can see examples of his work here. My work has been considered to be Pop Art by a reviewer in New York, but I don’t think of it in such a way.

There are angels everywhere in our culture, as has been the case for over a thousand years. However, one of the tenets of Pop Art is it’s lack of substance. For the most part it is extremely shallow and meaningless. There is nothing but surface. The angels that come to me through the paintings are full of substance. They are full of meaning. They are powerful.

The painting above was began five years ago this Easter, thus I always think of it as an Easter painting. A few months into working on it, a friend of mine was having a major operation. I had had some visions of it not going well and they bothered me quite a bit. While I was working on the painting one day I was overcome by the need to repeatedly as for my friend to be brought through the operation safely and with no complications. My prayers were not only heard, they were answered, because everything turned out alright. This is a painting of the Archangel Michael.

Every painting is a new journey which reveals to me new depths within this style. I didn’t find this style . . . it found me, at a time when I needed something to turn my life around. Through this painting I discovered simplicity and purity of abstraction using simple lines and vibrant colour.

Many thanks Roy.

The Light Within . . .