Trying to Reject Atheism While Remaining Hip

The door panel is from the kitchen of my old flat in Hammersmith and has ended up supplying several paintings. I did a very rough long rectangular cut and this became the canvas for ‘Trying to Reject Atheism…’. It was my first attempt at capturing the effervescent influence of Jack Kerouac on my life. My immersion in his novels coincided with the death of my grandfather and subsequent need to reassess my own already rigid rational atheism to a more fluid north-of-England-budhhistydruidic-tinged atheism.

I do hope to do a third and final Kerouac painting at some point, probably about Dharma Bums, my favourite of his novels.

Nobody thinks this look like Kerouac - someone thought it looked more like the Pakistani cricket legend Imran Khan. My brother suggested it was actually a portrait of Rupert Everett holidaying in the south of France. I think it looks like one of the characters from the 60s French kids TV programme The Aeronauts.

The road at the bottom is Route 66. I think. through it looks uncannily like the old A46 between Newark and Lincoln.