‘Cain and Abel’ oil on canvas 36”x 36”

I would consider this painting as the key work in my student years at the Ulster College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. It is a simple image of two men fighting on the ground in a dark street in the rain. It sums up my response to the civil strife in my country at this time and brings together the ideas and techniques developed in my other work of this period. The title of the work is from the biblical story of the tragedy of one brother killing another in a jealous rage and the use of almost identical figures struggling under a broken streetlight surrounded by barriers is my version of that story. The basic composition is taken from a work that I admired, ‘The Thieves and the Donkey’ by Honore Daumier, a French 19th century cartoonist and painter. This connection with the past in art history is for me an essential part of the learning process that all artists need to progress in their own work.