“Madonna’s Scream” 

Size 32″ x 122  Framed.

Acrylic on Canvas

Date 17/11/21

Suggested Min Price £100

Notes

The third number of Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour Video is “I’m on Fire”. The cutting is at times very fast, almost subliminal. Near the end is a glimpse of five Madonna heads slightly interwoven. 

This I took a photo of with my old Nokia low pixel mobile phone. After transfer by Bluetooth to a Photograph machine, obtaining a 6″ x 4″ photo and then enlarging this on a Xerox Printer 3x maximum there was an incredible and unique colour warp. Would this be my biggest challenge and a masterpiece, it not being my style? 

Eat your heart out Warhol I thought. I was incredibly excited. I rushed it. All sorts of problems arose. ou can’t mix colours like pixels in a gradual change from one colour to another. Yellow has to go on before green etc. 

In no way can I paint “out of focus” on everything. I couldn’t make the mouths the same because in different pixel colors they weren’t the same. 

The heads didn’t look like Madonna for the simple reason that she was loudly singing the word “fire” with a wide open mouth and extended jaw. Like Munch’s The Scream hence “Scream” in the title. (Incidentally, checking on this fact  I noted Munch did a very good nude Madonna in 1894)

I got confused and didn’t know what I wanted. I would finish each day promising to get up the next day and finish it off. Often it got worse. After 2 weeks of fiddling I said “That’s it!”, I’ll wash it with a dull colour. Finish!

Disaster the dull wash was far too dark and it never lightened during drying.Many expletives. I put it across the room in the evening in very poor light and it transformed into something wonderful and almost nothing to do with Madonna. 

The faces vanished and left the painting as an old, very dark, subtle, beautifully coloured, abstract tapestry. 

I finally called it “I Dream of Madonna’s Scream. I could not photograph the canvas properly as its too dark and the moby wants flash or full light. That’s it I thought. But of course it looked nothing like the photo of my inspiration. 

I couldn’t throw the copy away until I had tried to capture it. So I immediately purchased another canvas. And so I went through the agony all over again. At the end I gave it a white wash. Bloody awful. 

I put it aside for several days then suddenly picked it up in anger and slashed it back to colour. The best yet. A few bits to tidy up then (phew) it was as best I could, but I would rather frame the photo. Consequently I have destroyed the photo. 

No one will ever see it.