Cat in Trinity Lane, Cambridge, 2010

Abstract

While on sabbatical in 2010, I visited 2 of my graduates who were working at Cambridge University. One was undertaking research toward a PhD in the Biochemistry Department, within easy walking distance of the location shown in my painting. The other graduate (working at Cambridge Enterprise) took me and my partner to the pub where, in 1953, Watson and Crick formulated their ideas on the structure of DNA. The rather dank, but geometrically interesting Trinity Lane is shown in the painting (Fig. 1). The strong perspective draws the viewer down the lane toward a hidden destination. In fact, it leads toward the River Cam. The lane has remained substantially unchanged over several centuries. The painting conveys a sense of foreboding, perhaps because one tends to associate red with negative, danger-sensing emotions or because we simply do not know what is around the corner. My use of false color is influenced by the work of the early 20th-century Fauvists. The geometric blocks of color call to mind the abstract, color field, or hard-edge painters of the 1960s, but the present work remains distinctly figurative. I have inserted myself, with bicycle, into the picture. The identity and meaning of the cat are open to speculation.