The story behind ‘Puzzled? You Will Be’

This painting has been a long time coming.

Its beginnings go right back to the early days of my Infinity² concept. Then it sat around for years — surviving house moves and periods of neglect until I almost forgot about it completely.

Sometimes paintings — and the ideas I have for them — need time to mature. Like a good cheese. Or wine.

When I finally resurrected it, I wanted to play with two of my favourite compositional elements: curves and straight lines. The curves became concentric circles; the straight lines became quadrilaterals and sharp geometric forms piercing those circles.

Beneath and between them lies a whole archaeology of earlier ideas: screws, staples, coins representing my British roots and French adoption, and, of course, my beloved jigsaw pieces — all embedded in a richly textured surface.

Then came colour: metallics, monochrome passages, colour-coded sections. And finally, words.

Lots of them.

Enigmatic phrases straight from my subconscious — nonsense, wordplay, puns and fragments that perhaps even I couldn’t fully explain — accompanied by odd little sketches and arrows.

And that’s part of the fun.

The result is one of my most complex and intriguing Infinity² Puzzle Paintings: strong and geometric from a distance, but full of strange little discoveries when you get close.

Just how I like it.