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John's room 1990,
Oil on canvas © Paul McCartney |
This picture shows how much McCartney's work develops during the painting process. While his original intention was to try painting folds in the clothing on the central figure in yellow, a very painterly tradition, what developed during the course of painting were the features of John Lennon, which he imagined he saw on the face of the figure crouching in the red robe. McCartney describes painting as a sort of new encounter with familiar faces, like in a dream. Another character familiar to him from his musical past is suggested in the profile of the figure on the right, a manager called Brian Brolly. All in all this composition has something medieval and religious about it: the robes, the arched windows; and in the top right-hand corner the suggestion of a line of nine ancestors reinforces this mood, together with the gathering of seven figures in the foreground, numbers with mystical or symbolic connotations. "John's room" is one of McCartney's few interior motifs, a picture with a powerful sense of drama, borne out by the cheerful complementary colours and, in contrast, the formal, ecclesiastical structure.
PAUL McCARTNEY paintings
, Kunstforum Lÿz, Siegen, 1. Mai bis 25. Juli 1999
Konzeption & Organisation der Ausstellung: Kultur!Büro.
Kreis Siegen-Wittgenstein
Paintings © Paul McCartney. Photographs of the artist © Estate
of Linda McCartney
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