This piece is inadvertently inspired by Edvard Munch entitled “The Fathomable Scream” and made of approximately three drafts on two separate days with around three hours working. Beginning the work on lightly prepainted paper.

Here is the slightly premarked paper immediately below (11th May) to give you an idea of how the artworking area looked before I began:

Minimal.

You can see entirely random palette marks made, immediately above, whilst working on another paper canvas. The premarked paper is unintended scrapes of my palette knife whilst I worked on “Cavernous Red Blue Abyss”.

Here is the first intended draft:

In the first draft entitled “GG” we see the words ‘disguise’ and ‘covert’ in iron gall ink. The GG stood for good game, inspiration from an online Youtube video. I had no thought whatsoever to make the ‘GG’ into eyes, face and mouth as yet. Nor any idea regarding a Munch scream inspiration until the lower-right face formed.

Of the two faces to the right.. the lower-right face was first. Completely random in any likeness. HONESTLY. The paint was placed directly onto the paper. I used the palette to make face shapes. The mouth reminded me of a popular Oscar winning animation. However its sense of sadness, horror or anxiety appealed to me within the ideas of a developing artwork theme.

If you had observed how very randomly I moved the paint for the lower-right face over and over you would appreciate how odd it was to me when the chance likeness of someone famous appeared. Again.

From this I then thought of tragedies and musicians.. like Kurt Cobain, hence the blonde hair idea. Afterwards (days afterwards) I realised this artistic idea had another direct significance to ‘the likeness’ face!

By this time the top-right face could represent John Lennon, or anyone the viewer chose in the context of tragedy.

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It is good to note for the second draft I watched television at the time of painting the evening of 18th May. Usually I art work in quiet as I’m a very focused person. Although if I write songs I am often listening to music.

A particular sports commentary to know their general opinions.

The hair for the large left face is pure chance in that I never intended to actually paint hair! I thought of Andy Warhol by the time I made divers goggles around the eyes. It was also here I loved the way the unintended hair looked. I literally wanted a nice background as I paletted gold paint onto the canvas.

“The Fathomable Scream” [16th/18th May 2024] became an immediately recognisable, creative and unique Unfathomable Artist work.

Here it is to show the painting only: