Borin Van Loon: Surrealistic Pillow

Time Transfixed. Oil on board
Bronze Award Benson & Hedges Illustration Competition
The inspiration behind this painting was a superbly sensitive monochrome photograph by Edwin Smith. It portrayed a Victorian church sculpture by Matthew Cotes Wyatt at St George's Chapel at Windsor; one of the draped figures haunted me and I wanted to pair the hidden, kneeling human shape with a dominant draped form. The finished result produces a Russian doll of images: you're looking at a digital file of a printed photograph of a painting of a photograph of a sculpture (of draped cloth)... The title is a deliberate tip of the hat to Magritte (a great bloke). So here's a much earlier Homage a Magritte (oil on board) showing a Death's Head Moth, it's heavy abdomen and fluttering wings obcuring the face of the impassive gentleman. Moths have always inculcated fear