The title of this painting, “First”, is one of my “Love is…” series of paintings; to me first signifies first love, first desire, first attraction, first anything that you can think of that could come first.

On first inspection, this painting shows the wild excitement that goes on when you first fall in lust with someone, what flows between two people both tangible and intangible. When you stay up all night talking and making love, the ideas for the future that flow from you both verbally and non-verbally. However, there is a deeper meaning…

I have purposefully used a skull in this series to highlight that humans, despite what prejudices we may consciously or unconsciously hold, are all the same underneath, no matter who we are. Our religion, the colour of our skin, where we come from, the language we speak, our accents even, our ability or disability, none of that matters we are all exactly the same underneath. Whether we love someone, or if we just love ourselves that is what comes first that is all that matters.

The reference photo I used for this painting comes from my own personal collection, I used to work in archaeology and I worked a lot in human remains, so I personally worked with this skelly, and actually, although the painting depicts two halves, it is from one skull and is meant to bring in additional symbolism. The two halves of a whole may mean when you’ve loved one person, for such a long time you do feel like that other person is your other half, you have that deep spiritual bond, or it could mean that you need to learn to love individual parts of yourself first before you can love yourself as a whole.

If you take such a small word as “First” and broaden that concept into love, what could it be? Could it be your first crush as a child in the playground? Could it be the love for your best friend? It could be anything, it is entirely up to you.