People who know me – and my history with my car, the quasi-legendary Bunnymobile – know I have a history with driving and chickens.

Last year in July I have been struck by a driver in a lorry who claimed he was trying to avoid running over a chicken in the middle of the road. The mystery bird was never seen again.
So, chickens became a bit of a spirit animal of mine, together with the rabbit and the snake. (This is beginning to sound like a Chinese zodiac thing, though I doubt anyone will ever swerve off the road to try to avoid running over a dragon with their car.)

This painting, however, was made a long time before that, while I was trying to acquaint myself with oil paints once again after a few stints in the past, the first over 20 years ago.
Interestingly, the emergence of generative AI images made me do this. I will not go in depth here about the ethical problems bound to genAI and its humongous energy consumption. Others have done it before me and much better than I ever could.
Suffice to say my reaction was to go back to art that you can touch and that has a unique presence in the material world.

Oh, and we have a 10-year-old chicken free roaming in the garden.

Oil on canvas