SERENDIPITY #21 Hope

By happy coincidence - serendipity! - (I will get tired of this, but not before you) the exhibition is on for 23 days and since there are 23 paintings, for the sheer hell of it I will be posting about a painting every day throughout . . . ​​​
Hope. Acrylic, mixed-media on drawing board 47x65cm. ​Also available as an A2 limited edition print.

HOPE springs eternal . . .  under the CHAPEL three words are worn down into the scarred wood - Scratch, Diablo & Ska. Disco devil indeed. Hope Chapel has a nice red neon Church of Christ and this (rather understated in comparison) stone scroll which I've always liked. It is on a well-trod route of the past, adjacent to Drinkers Paradise and Kentish Town Baths, only one of which was of any use to me. The chubby angel between the eyebrows is from a Russian greeting card - she looks well pissed off in pink. The full face stencil portrait takes over the board,  painted over the spray a pair of blue eyes play the staring game, the rosy red lips remain sealed.  My favourite smoker takes his usual lowered position, sitting there thinking holy fuck, what's my luck . . . scratch, scratch, scratch the surface and what lies beneath? Hope! Goddamn it, Hope!- it is human nature always to find fresh cause for optimism. That's me in a shell-suit! Sure beats hope over experience.