Peony Vase II

Two enormous peonies lean forward out of a cobalt-and-white porcelain vase, almost filling the entire square canvas. The petals are built from ribboned palette-knife strokes in pale pink, ivory and rose; the seedhead centers burn yellow-orange and indigo at the heart of each bloom.

Visual cues include flower, flowers, and leaves. The palette is anchored by blue, green, and pink. The composition is square.

Best suited for a bedroom, dining room, and kitchen. Works well in beauty salon and boutique hotel.

Pairs naturally with floral and impasto interiors. A square format centres a wall cleanly when the furniture below is symmetrical.

Color-wise, the piece works with blue, green, pink, white, and yellow. The overall temperature is cool, settling the room into a calm and considered mood.

Oil on stretched canvas, brought up by a single painter in continuous sittings. Layers of oil build up over the underpainting, so the surface carries visible weight and the brushwork stays legible.

The floral character runs through the underpainting, while the impasto feel emerges in the surface passes. For Peony Vase II, drying and varnishing follow the traditional oil-painting cycle so the finished surface holds without yellowing. The square stretch is keyed evenly on all four sides, which is the format that holds tension most predictably.

Centre a square canvas above a single piece of furniture — chair, table, fireplace — rather than across a long span. Allow at least 30 cm of clear wall on each side; the square format prefers air around it. In a bedroom, Peony Vase II reads best on the wall you look at first when entering.

Available sizes: oversized. Pick the size to the wall, not the wall to the size. Step back to roughly twice the canvas height to take Peony Vase II in — that is the distance the painter worked at.