Prodigal's Soup Can

This painting has, um, you know, the, the repeated flower, although in this painting, I think it's painted much more with the intention of it being a sunflower, um, hence sort of the darker, the darker centre and one of the other, um, elements from, uh, from, uh, a different painting. The toy soldier kind of makes its appearance here as well. Um, with the sunflower sitting in, in this kind of soup can like, um, um, image in the centre, um, for me that the, you know, the suit can was probably the, the most intentional part.

The label is, is mostly covered up here with a little bit of a peeling off and, um, you know, the can itself, you know, painted in those dark colours was, was kind of intended to be a bit, I guess, a bit like a, a galaxy, I guess you could say, um, with a little bit of the label peeling off sort of revealing on the, on the backside of the paper label, again, the, blue sky and clouds.

And then, you know, the part of the actual soup can that you can see is, is, you know, reminiscent of that, um, those sort of Andy Warhol soup cans or, or referencing that I should say rather than reminiscent, um, you know, this, this part of it was, was really just about having fun with, you know, the idea of this iconic pop art form and, and playing around with that.

Playing with the contrast between kind of the, the galaxy, the daylight sky, um, in that small, very small kind of portion of label that's peeled off. Um, and then revealing, you know, the original source information, I guess you could call it and, you know, pop art has made such a big impact on, on most of us who aren't, um, who aren't connected to art in an academic way.

Perhaps it's something that's horrifying to people who are academics, but, you know, to me it's still fun.

And, you know, for a lot of people, that was the thing that maybe, you know, pop art itself is probably one of the things that kind of sparked a little bit of an interest in art and kind of drew them in. Um, and it certainly did. It certainly did for me. Um, I think pop art and comics and graffiti were kind of like the holy Trinity of, of art influences for myself. Um, again, the little soldier that's toppled over in the corner, I think is, is my, you know, at this point in the painting process after, um, after destroying so many of the paintings coming out of lockdown in Melbourne, I think, um, my little soldier fallen over is, is almost giving up on, on the discipline of trying to push through with that original idea.

I've come to recognize that little toy soldier, um, not as anything to do with sort of, um, war or violence or anything like that. But I think, a concept for me around, around discipline and, um, you know, I've always been worried about being a, either a procrastinator or someone who doesn't follow through on particular things. Um, and so this, this little soldier icon is, is probably how I interpret the concept of discipline in my own mind. Um, and so it's a bit of a, it's a bit of a, maybe a summary of my, my influences and my, um, you know, my fight with, with myself around China, be disciplined to do the things that I want to follow through on.