I give myself one colour eruption per piece. Not two, not a background wash, not a subtle gradient somewhere else. One burst, and then I stop.
This is a pigeon on a Hackney railing. The body, the rail, the negative space—all vector, all grey, all staying exactly where I put them. Then the wing unfolds and I switch tools.
The burst happens once
Fuchsia base, cyan over the top, both from a can. I pour acetone through while it’s still wet and let it pull the pigment where it wants to go. The vector work takes days. The spray takes four minutes, and I don’t get a second pass.
Ruby called it “vivid interplay” in her review, which is cleaner than what it feels like to make. It’s more like watching a controlled accident—you set the conditions, then you let the chemistry happen and hope you didn’t overthink it.
That fuchsia-cyan split is deliberate. I want the temperature shift, hot to cold, in the same gesture. It’s the one place in the piece where two things happen at once.
London grey, Lagos colour
The palette comes from two places I know. The greys are every rail, every paving stone, every January sky I grew up under. The colour is somewhere else entirely—markets, fabrics, the way saturation works when there’s no cloud cover.
Wing Unfolding Fuchsia is the third pigeon I’ve done this year, and they’re all mid-motion. I’m not interested in them standing still. The whole point of the burst is that it’s happening now, in the second you’re looking at it.
Valentina called the collision “expertly controlled” in her critique, and I’ll take that. Control is exactly what I’m after—right up until the moment I spray, and then control is the thing I’m trying to lose without losing the piece.
This is for people who like a decision
If you want subtlety, or five colours talking to each other, or something that shifts depending on the light, this won’t do it. One subject, one burst, nothing else competing.
It’s not for minimalists—there’s too much saturation. And it’s not for maximalists—there’s too much restraint. It’s for the narrow band of people who want both at once and can live with the fact that they don’t quite resolve.
Matte fine art poster, in 3 sizes — 11×14, 16×20, 18×24 in. Ships free within the continental US.
