We’ve called this painting Pick-up Sticks after the children’s game of coloured wooden sticks that you drop in a pile, then try to remove a stick without making any of the others move.
Someone worked hard on Pick-up Sticks and we think perhaps they worked too hard: there is a lot going on in this painting. Colours, lines, shapes, texture; it’s a never ending party of a painting.
We found it in Paddington during a council clean up week, when the pavements are full of trash and treasure and the sounds of people shifting the piles around, looking for good stuff among the broken things. People can be seen walking around holding lamps, or a pile of old unwanted novels, gifts from the street fairies, or whoever you like to blame when you get home with a strange new object for the house.
Pick-up sticks, however, is headed for a different fate. It’s heading for a new life as a new artwork.
