The second painting is “Laplace’s Demon”. I used Blake’s “Newton” as a basis for the demon figure as Blake ‘was critical of Newton’s reductive, scientific approach and so shows him merely following the rules of his compass, blind to the colourful rocks behind him.’ The painting was composed in Photoshop using the Blake painting and stock photographs. It, too, went through several variations in colour but with less success than the previous work.
There are parts I do like – the hands of the demon are expressive (with a Ken Kiff quality to them), the ground colour showing through on the paper and smartphone accentuate the ephemerality of any future prediction and the front half of the wombat reflects an Australian self-possession in the face of natural chaos. But the rest is a mess: the demon is too blob-like, the middle ground overwhelms everything and the ground showing through in the far background looks unfinished rather than deliberate.
Tony Linde 