The 'Twenty One ' series has been an ever expanding and changing painting series. The series conceptually began as a set of 21 drawings, and 21 paintings. As things progressed, the series now includes  21 digital prints, and the potential of including 21 AI images. This will make up a collection of 84 works in all.

The drawings come as an illustration and notes - these will be copied and combined into a single printed work on paper.

The paintings are on unframed flat composition board panels, painted in acrylic - only 3mm thick, fragile  but take up minimal space in the studio. These will be either framed or glued onto a thicker substrate when finished. The paintings are in various stages of completion . To faciltate painting a cradle support was made to easily swap and support whilst painting - like shuffling playing cards.

The digital prints are photgraphs of the early stages of the paintings - no colour, just loose sketching in black paint with obvious white corrections. Then they are  colourised with multiple layers in Affinity, and finally textured in Zoner. The works become highly processed, yet the original expressive drawing shines through. When finished they are upscaled to a size where they fit aesthetically on an A1 size PDF @ 300DPI and printed on Matte 160GSM Coated Bond paper - basically like a poster print.

The venture into AI is interesting, especially with it's entanglement with DATA and information - the series already had some commentary in this area. Basically, the AI utility is shown a finished version of  a digital work and then asked to reproduce it in a certain style.  The AI utility has also been asked to interpret the work as gallery  explanation notes - the results are rather strange.

The 'Twenty One' series is based on a passage in the Bible. The passage is about the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse as found in the book of Revelation by John. Three images are developed from three different readings of one Seal, which is how we get to 21.

A seal is interpreted through different lenses - "Secular", "Scriptural" , and "Sensational" - this is my starting point for each image.  They are created in this order as well - a spreadsheet was devised to facilitate this process.

The "Secular" viewpoint is more inline with the unbeliever, Liberal theologian or New athiests (like Dawkins  et al.)

The "Scriptural" viewpoint is inline with historical protestant theology - more conservative and standard in it's interpretations.

The "Sensational" viewpoint is more inline with a spurious and sensational interpretation - like those on  conspiracy web sites, and made by self seeking authors, who make grand unsubstantiated claims.

In the information age (and especially now with the intrusion of AI) concepts about truth, information, facts, science and religion have come under attack. The 'Twenty One' series on one level looks deeply into this paradigm, and on another level, chaotically explores image making.

The works at time reference various known icons, and at other times, throws into disarry traditional mark making, composition and meaning. At times the works have a style like medieval illuminated texts but are never allowed to slip into mere illustrations, but sort of act as contemporary talismans - warding off the collapse of culture.