TO HER, Trillion Green, Elizabeth Soyer and the story behind a painting...

I sold a piece called To Her at my recent show of paintings. The buyer ask me if I could write down the story behind the piece that I told at the gallery, along with some information about my work. The piece is mixed media on canvas, 60cm x 90cm... (I'm off to deliver it later today...)

SEAN WORRALL - TO HER. - Painting, mixed media on canvas, 2010.

Sean Worrall's current body of paintings explore the notions of new layers reclaiming those things that are left decay, notions of Trillion Green and the Captain's Table, the idea that our cities will eventually be covered and lost in new layers, first in the short term as we use them as a street art canvas then as nature paints her leaf shaped beauty. Sean's paintings explore the taking back of old walls, the growing over, the freshness of new leaves, new marks, old surfaces, always growing, new weathered marks over old faded marks, new layers, new leaves, fresh leaves, new growth over old, new shoots, new paint over old, new street art on old city walls, new art over old walls, layer over layer, the covering up, the taking back of unloved surfaces, spaces reclaimed both my human hand and nature's growth.

New graffiti, nature's leaf graffiti, growing on walls, over old concrete, Kensal Green cometary, grown over, new leaves growing under, new marks on old marks, rain marks, rain drops, new leaves over old leaves, new street art marks obscuring old man-made marks, green shoots, instant shapes of spray paint, red shoes, green rain, Montana Gold, To Her....New leaves, revealing the old, evolving, regenerating, the taking back, plant life, street art, plants as street art, plant shape as pop art, organic graffiti, found things painted on, grown on, green shoots and buds taking back...

TO HER is a painting created in late summer 2010 ahead of a show of work at the Dissenters Chapel, Kensal Green Cemetery. London - a place alive with fresh growth over old, new leaves over old stones... The painting is a celebration of painter Elizabeth Emma Soyer and Alexis Benoist Soyer's monument of worship to her, it is also a celebration of Her, pagan notions of the goddess, of green..

TO HER is also a monument of worship To Her, Painter Elizabeth Emma Soyer (nee Jones), that is to be found in Kensal Green Cemetery...

"Elizabeth Emma Jones was born in London in 1813. In 1836 she married Alexis Benoist Soyer the famous Chef de Cuisine of the Reform Club, Pall Mall, London. She died on the 29th of August, 1842, aged twenty-nine. She showed talent from a very young age and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823, at barely ten years old. This highly accomplished artist focused on portraiture and studies of nature. Her works were popularised through engravings and she went on to exhibit at the Paris Salon from 1840-42. Her reputation in France stood higher than even her native country. She was regarded as unusual and precociously gifted. Her works were admired because they were said to have been marked by great vigour and breadth of light and shadow."

Elizabeth Soyer died during child birth in 1842. A "said to be devastated" Alexis Soyer had the grand pedestal tomb erected in 1844. Designed by her husband Alexis, a leading (early celebrity) chef and dietician of the 19th centur. Carved by Pierre Puyenbroeck of Brussels, the monument had a permanent gas powered eternal flame that burnt until the 1930's when apparently someone at the cemetery company worked out they were actually paying the gas bill. The monument fell in to (what some would say was) beautifully natural decay until cleaned and restored by Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery in 2009.

Kensal Green is an inspiring place (especially the overgrown parts), the idea of Trillian (or the Captains Table) and the leaf growth taking back man-made objects in such an organically beautiful way... leaves wrapped around crosses, words on stones weathered away, fading in a way street art on buildings never quite does... layers and layers to visually peel back and explore.. words, shapes, leaves, lives... To Her in so many ways...