"The Art of Listening"

These two pieces were specifically painted for "The Art of Listening" exhibition earlier this month in Sheffield. The exhibition was in conjunction with the Sheffield Samaritans, and a good number of the artists involved were local. The themes consisted of 'despair and hope' ; which are hardly the most inventive, but I really enjoyed the paintings.
I did take a slightly different spin on the themes however - the despair I chose to illustrate, is of a hollow kind, the sort of despair manufactured by a large degree of the western youth, a youth that mostly has never really had any true problems, and thus never suffered true despair. This is of course only one small interpretation of a much larger subject, as some would argue that despair is relative to your surroundings. The title of the painting with the sitting figure is, "Deep in this sad Hollow", which is a line from Dante's "Inferno".
The title of the painting with the sitting woman is, "The Paradise of Fools", which is a quote from Milton's "Paradise Lost". As always the finished paintings will be posted on my website.
And thats enough from me I think...