First Steps - Building a Portfolio

In 2003 I travelled to Ecuador, and since then Latin America has become my muse. This painting was the first canvas that I completed on my return. It's based on Gauguin's "Still Life with Three Puppies", using as a composition three dollar coins, two mangoes, and a clay idol at its heart. It's painted on linen stretched over an oval MDF panel which measures 19 inches across.
It's not a style that I usually adopt, but the ambigous subject matter and colour scheme fascinated me so much that I had to try and emulate it. You'll be the judge of how successful I have been.

This was to have been the first of a series of about twenty canvases to be made for an exhibition based on my time in South America. I now realise that I do not have enough strong material to achieve that goal. I am planning another trip to Latin America shortly, so a similar exhibition will happen before too long, but until that happens I'll have to keep building up a body of work on other themes, and find other ways to display my work.