A painting from Jacqueline Hammond's The Signification of the Poppy series
Title: Breakthrough (SOLD)
Medium: Acrylics on canvas
Dimensions: 61 x 61 cm
Artist: Jacqueline Hammond
One of a series of ten paintings depicting the traditional landscape of poppy fields but with a contemporary edge that combines the beauty of flowers with the symbolic role of the poppy in association with war throughout history.
‘The Signification of the Poppy’ began with a painting created for a web based competition – ‘Seeking Picasso’ in which Jacqueline was a finalist. The theme was 'A Troubled World' and so the painting was inspired by the situation in Afghanistan and the general metaphor of the poppy in relation to previous wars. She was then commissioned by one of the judges to produce a series of paintings on the same subject for The McNeill Gallery, Radlett, Hertfordshire.
The works finely depict the poppy as a metaphor. Some represent the emblem of poppy worn for Remembrance Day: another life, another loss. Others depict farmed opium poppies; their beauty offset by the reason for their existence, representing current causes of conflict. In ‘A Troubled World’ and ‘Carpet of Red’ the suggestion of war is confirmed in the distance, where the rolling green hills when viewed more closely have a river of blood running between them, flowing down from the bloodshed in the barren, sandy, habituated hills. Just proves that beauty can be deceiving. A field of flowers can be more than a pretty picture.
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