Four Horses Renewal

26" x 34" batik on cotton

I’ve called this batik painting a ‘renewal’ because it is something I first created in 1979 (!) and revisited in 2016. I originally saw the concept of four horses, long before I created my batik of it, when I was about 7 years old, browsing a children's art encyclopedia. Apparently it is an ancient, perhaps Abyssinian, image by an unknown artist. Many people only see two horses, but look closely and you will see four—two horses horizontally, top and bottom, and two vertically, left and right. I never forgot the concept and have painted a number of watercolour versions on paper, but the first version I did was this batik on cotton.