The painting “SPINEHEAD” represents both beginning and end, and life and death. The canvas is split into a top and bottom composition by a distinct change in colour palette. From a psychological perspective the piece combines truth and fiction, conscious (what can be seen) and unconscious (what can’t be seen), what is above and what is below.
The title “SPINEHEAD” and image is drawn from two sources with similar structural qualities: one real and the other fictional and theoretical. The first is a God’s eye (top down) perspective of a marginata cane plant. The second is a film figure known as the archetypal figure of the master or maker of the machine world matrix or system that faces “Neo” at the culmination of the third matrix film.
A digital sketch was created as a reference to the larger oil painting with composed layers of images giving the opportunity for colour and composition experimentation prior to completing the final piece.