One of my paintings that will be in the forthcoming Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours that will open at Mall Galleries on May 20th and run until May 29th.

Full details at: mallgalleries.org.uk

About this painting:

I have been listening to a lot of blues music during lockdown.

'Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground' is a blues instrumental recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1927, and is a favourite of mine.

I was reminded of an interesting fact: In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1, a space probe designed to study the outer solar system. Should the spacecraft ever be found by intelligent life forms from other planets, among all the essential equipment on board is a gold plated record containing photos of earth scientific information and sounds of Earth including pieces of music.The track by Blind Willie Johnson is one of them.

Voyager is the furthest human-made Object from the Earth, currently over 14 billion miles away.

Fortunately there are graphic illustrations included on the disc showing how to play an LP should that necessity arise.