Greek Vase

GREEK VASE
In Room 13 of the British Museum, ancient Greek amphorae stand behind glass that the whole world comes to look through. They have survived earthquakes, wars, centuries underground, the collapse of the civilisation that made them. Their shapes — the particular curve from shoulder to neck, the twin handles, the proportioned base — were refined over generations of craftspeople until they reached a formal perfection that two and a half thousand years have done nothing to diminish.
An artist stood in front of one of them with a sketchbook.
Not to copy it. To listen to it. To understand, through the act of drawing, what that shape was made of — what decisions were embedded in its proportions, what the ancient hand knew about balance and form that the eye alone cannot fully receive. The sketches and photographs made that day in the museum were the beginning of a conversation between two very different moments in the history of making.
Greek Vase is where that conversation arrived.
The original form — recognisably Greek, carrying the authority of its ancient lineage — is reimagined through the full mixed media language of a contemporary studio: washi tape, Posca markers, spray paint, stickers, acrylic. The vivid blue square ground places the vessel firmly in now, while the shape itself insists on its two-thousand-year heritage. Neither tradition overwhelms the other. The ancient and the contemporary occupy the same surface with equal confidence, as if they were always going to end up here together.
The British Museum preserves what civilisations left behind. This painting asks what happens when a living artist picks it up and carries it forward.
30.5 × 30.5 cm · Acrylic, glue, spray paint, washi tape, Posca markers and stickers on canvas panel · 2022 · One of a kind Unframed. Signed on the front and signed, titled and dated on the reverse. Certificate of Authenticity included.