Palimpsest- The Painting

I called this picture Palimpsest which is the name given to a manuscript in which old writing has been rubbed out to make room for new.

I chose this name because I feel Rome is a City of multiple layers in which the marks of previous generations are still visible alongside the new.

I have recently signed up for a course of mixed media classes with Piers Ottey at the Mill Studio near Arundel and this painting was the product of the assignment for the summer term.

Although I have been going to Piers’ life drawing sessions for sixteen years, these were ,and still are, untutored. I had always worked in charcoal, pastel or oils for the life work but wanted to explore watercolour and collage in greater depth and decided that I would benefit from joining Piers’ group for a term or two. Many of his students are professional or serious amateurs who regularly exhibit and sell their work (some have had work accepted for the prestigious Chichester Open Art Exhibition). The wide range of activities and classes on offer are well worth attending. For further info go to http://www.themillstudio.com/

Enough about Piers.
Back to my Palimpsest.

This word probably sums up a lot of the influences in my work. I am fascinated by how the past influences the present and the future. I have already written a poem with the same title which explored the concept of a manuscript being the body of an artist’s model on whom the marks of her relationship with the artist have been indelibly written. In the painting I am again exploring different stories indelibly inscribed over time on the fabric of the city. It evolved, as I said, from the assignment given at the beginning of Pier’s summer term in which he suggested we created a painting of a city we love. And I love Rome!

It would have been too easy to paint a typical ‘tourist’ image of Rome but for me a city or landscape is never separate from the people who inhabit it. Rome is a cauldron of characters and it was a selection of these characters that I wanted to capture.

In the painting we see the old alongside the new and the transitory; the ceremony, pomp and illusion of the Vatican standing apart from the ordinary citizens such as the chef and the children on the right and, between these two, the fugitive status of the Senegalese traders plying their wares from cotton sheets on the bridge of angels – ever ready to flee from the attentions of the Carabinieri.

The bridge, originally constructed in Roman times by the Emperor Hadrian, was renamed Ponte Sant’Angelo in the seventh century. It has the statues of ten angels flanking it and I have drawn the Angel with the Cross in my painting. For me the bridge is representative of the division between the religious and the secular.

The relationship between the sacred and the temporal is another theme I like to explore and is addressed in the series of paintings I am developing called City Angels. More on this in later blogs.

The painting utilises pencil, ink, pastel, watercolour and collage with each medium used to support the story the image is relating eg: I have used pages from the Bible ( sections from The Epistle of Paul The Apostle to the Romans) in the columns on the left. This links, not only with the Christianity upon which the Vatican is founded but also with the drawing of St. Paul in my painting taken from the statue of the apostle in St. Peter’s square.


Detail of collage on columns.



Pastel has been combined with gesso to create the texture of a fresco for the background where an ink drawing of the forum has been applied and masked among the other ruins.


The figures in the foreground have been painted in watercolours to contrast the fluid nature of human life against the more permanent structures of the city.

Detail of chef and children .





I created a variety of images whilst exploring this theme, some realistic, others abstract in which I explored colours and emotions.

It took several weeks to complete and is waiting to be mounted and framed – the framer having had an unfortunate accident and slipped a disc - so I will not be able to submit it for the exhibition I had had in mind.

Either way, it will be mounted and framed before being offered for sale as it requires particular attention to enable it to be presented at its best at which time I will be able to specify a price.

As a guide I will be asking £250 for the painting plus mounting and framing. This offers a huge saving on the exhibition price as it excludes gallery commission (which can be up to 50% of the sale price).

The image is in mixed media on Aquarelle Arches 640g heavy weight paper measuring 56 cm x 76 cm.

If you would like to express an interest in purchasing this painting please contact me by clicking here.