These above details are from a larger painting “Jacob’s Ladder” (below).
This work is meant to be looked at up close so that you are immersed in all the detail. Then move your eyes from one element to the next so that you move through the sequence just like a spoken story. There is no right or wrong path for your eye to follow as each person will see something different. Yes, there is a ladder – blocks of bright colour reaching up into the picture – but maybe it is only a convenient peg on which to hang a series of vignettes.
There is music being performed and crowds on a tiny spherical Earth applauding. But why are the figures naked and what is the significance of the pair of disembodied legs riding a bicycle? There are odd looking creatures such as the shark trying to eat a turtle and three very oddly shaped fish suspended over the river bank.
Why is the seaside hotel on the left covered in swirling colours of yellow and brown? In a way the whole effect can be thought of as an abstract painting, which instead of having non-figurative elements such as shapes and marks, uses figurative building blocks to create a composition. The mind then has real objects to grapple with instead of purely abstract details.