Monkey

A monkey crouches low, its body compressed into a rounded, hunched mass with a curling tail beneath it; the head turns in profile, one round eye and a pale muzzle picked out against the dark fur. It sits isolated, the pink-red field behind acting as backdrop rather than setting.

The animal is built almost entirely from cobalt and ultramarine impasto, dragged with a palette knife so the fur reads as ridges of thick paint, with white marking the highlights on face and shoulder and a band of yellow across the background. Against the raw crimson ground the blue figure feels charged and slightly menacing.