Room With A View

This view was a surprise! I had recently seen Robben Island from the top of Table Mountain, but it never occurred to me that the prison on Robben Island would be built to allow clear views of the mountain directly from any of the cells.

Having recovered from my surprise, this view struck me as one packed with meanings – “so near yet so far” was the first that occurred to me, “forbidden fruits” was the next, and so on …

I decided to make the painting quite bold, using a style inspired by some Jean-Claude Götting paintings I have seen recently. My interpretation of Jean-Claude’s style is very approximate of course, and his subject matter is very different. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with this painting – it is fairly simple but still tells all the stories that this surprise view has to tell.