I was looking at Monet’s ‘Woman with a Parasol’ a few weeks back and thought to myself that if it was painted today, there would probably be a mushroom cloud in the background; especially with the nuclear saber-rattling over Korea. People forget that there’s still enough nukes from the Cold War pointed at each other to annihilate the world many times over.
Anyway, I took the idea and ran with it. I was aiming for Caravaggio with the explosion, but ended up with Rob Medley. I decided to paint the woman and boy in Monet’s style. Why? Because I never went to art school and I’m sure they do things like this in that learning environment. I found that I kind of like his ‘schtick’, and may incorporate more of it in future work.
18×24, acrylic on canvas, 2017. Available on Etsy: Nuclear Monet