Smile in Colour III

A familiar seated portrait sits inside a riot of contemporary color. The face and folded hands are rendered in warm sienna and burnished gold, faithful to the calm pose at the picture''s heart.

Visual cues include face, portrait, and woman. The palette is anchored by blue, brown, and green. The composition is vertical.

Smile in Colour III sits well in a game room or a hallway. Bar and boutique hotel settings are also a strong fit.

It pairs with pop art and portrait interiors more naturally than ornate ones. A vertical hang reads well above a sideboard or a narrow console.

The dominant register is blue, brown, green, pink, and red. Warm and cool sit in close conversation here; the piece neither pulls forward nor settles back.

Each canvas is laid in by one painter from start to finish, in oil on stretched cotton. Edges are softened where the eye should rest and sharpened where it should stop, with tonal value carried through measured passes.

The pop art character runs through the underpainting, while the portrait feel emerges in the surface passes. Smile in Colour III is finished with the traditional drying and varnishing cycle; the stretcher is keyed evenly to keep the canvas flat in shipping. The vertical stretch keys the canvas tighter at the long edges, which is what holds a tall format true on the wall.

Vertical formats sit best on tall, narrow walls: between two windows, framing a doorway, or above a slim hall console. Centre the canvas at standing eye level (around 150 cm above the floor); a vertical wants air on both sides. The pop art character of Smile in Colour III prefers a wall that has a single focal piece rather than a grid.

Available sizes: custom. Pick the size to the wall, not the wall to the size. View Smile in Colour III from about twice the canvas height back; that is the distance at which the surface settles.