Our latest canvas, ‘New Leaf’, features the familiar household ‘cheese plant’. ‘Monstera Deliciosa’ is the botanical name of the Swiss Cheese Plant. This very popular indoor plant originates from Southern Mexico, and is capable of reaching about 5 feet in height. The plants can live for ten to fifteen years, and some have even survived for over twenty years. With its glossy, sculptural leaves, the Swiss Cheese Plant looks wonderful in contemporary interiors.
New Leaf
Our unusual pop art painting, ‘New Leaf’, will soon be available from Goldcrest Gallery as an 8″ canvas print. Originally, the artist painted the leaves on canvas board, with a separate painting for each of the five colours. The boards measured approximately 2 feet by 2.5 feet, and the leaves were painted life size. These paintings were then digitised. On screen, they were organised into an arrangement designed by the artist.
The Pop Art Movement
Pop Art is a late 1950s art movement, which chose to use images of very familiar everyday objects and popular culture. It also emphasised the repetition of the mechanical reproduction techniques available to contemporary artists of the time, such as silk screen printing. The fact that an identical image could be repeated multiple times was explored, for example by making minor adjustments to each individual image. In addition, Pop Art sometimes isolated the subject matter from its original context and, in ‘New Leaf’, the artist has chosen to portray one identical leaf without the surrounding plant to give it any context.
New Leaf: Pop Art Painting
Each horizontal row of leaves follows the same sequence of four colours: orange, red, purple and blue. The artist has moved these rows to the right by one motif at a time. Consequently, this has created a strong, left-to-right diagonal pattern. The ironic stance of Pop Art has been emphasised by introducing two pale green leaves which interrupt the mechanical formation of the pattern.
These two green leaves face in the opposite direction to all the others. ‘Turning over a new leaf’, the phrase which indicates a decision to behave in a radically different manner, has given this witty painting its name. It is available as an A3 fine art print and handmade greeting card, in addition to our canvas print. ‘New Leaf’ is visually beautiful as well as conceptually interesting, and brings a retro touch to your modern interior!