Smile in Colour IV

Loud and unapologetically contemporary, this canvas takes a familiar Renaissance smile and surrounds it with pure modern color. The face, neck and torso are kept in warm gold and umber, faithful to the source pose.

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

The pop art character makes Smile in Colour IV a natural fit for a game room. It also shows well in a hallway and home office.

In commercial spaces, it suits bar and boutique hotel. A vertical hang reads well above a sideboard or a narrow console.

Most of the surface is given over to blue, brown, green, pink, and red. The colors meet at a balanced midpoint, giving the work a contained energy rather than a single direction.

The painter works in oil on stretched canvas, with no division of labour between sketch and finish. 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. The painter closes the cycle on Smile in Colour IV with standard drying times and a clear final varnish, so the work is built to age well. The vertical stretch keys the canvas tighter at the long edges, which is what holds a tall format true on the wall.

Hang a vertical canvas where the wall itself is taller than it is wide; the format leans into that proportion. Leave 30 cm or more of wall on each side; the work asks for room to breathe vertically as well as horizontally.

Smile in Colour IV suits a game room that is built around one piece rather than a collection. For Smile in Colour IV, step back twice the canvas height once it’s hung — the brushwork resolves at that distance.