Herding

This raw umber oil under-painting on plywood was inspired from a trip to Morocco, near the Atlas Mountains where I stayed at a hotel that had a domestic animal farm attached. I observed and did studies of the chickens being herded into their pens before night fall to protect them from predators.

The painting is an analogy for our current forced situation of the government attempting to create mass protection from a contagious infectious disease through herd immunity. I wanted to convey this sense of urgency, confusion and bewilderment reflecting some of these current feelings.

I decided to stop painting here to show the work in progress, the unfinished rawness of the image, showing the natural plywood, pencil marks or the workings to build this image. 

Oil – Work in Progress

@michael.banbury