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Visual Idioms

Visual Idioms

Medium
Fine Art
Dimension
9 x 12 in
Date
January 2026
Description

Four pictures, four sayings, no words. Each panel takes an idiom everybody already knows and stages it as a single image in gouache, and all four are held to the same blue and gold so the set reads as one thought rather than four. A brain climbing out of its box. Two birds sharing one arrow. A barrel emptying itself onto a fire. A figure whose head has become the sun. I have deliberately not labelled them anywhere on the page. Half the pleasure of an idiom is the second in which you recognise it, and I would rather hand you that second than explain it away.

Gouache panel: two blue birds in flight, each gripping one end of a single gold arrow, beneath a gold sun.
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Gouache panel: a blue brain lifting out of an open cardboard box painted with an on-off switch, gears, a wrench and a gold hand.
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Gouache panel: a tipped blue barrel pouring gold liquid onto tall gold flames on a tiled floor, a crescent moon in the window behind.
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Gouache panel: a figure whose head has been replaced by a blazing gold sun, standing among swirling stars and dark blue foliage.
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