Fenlands vista

A prospect of Ely cathedral

Annihilation of Time and Space

One of a series of paintings by Tarragon depicting the semi-abstracted view seen from the window of a speeding train.

work in progress

work in progress

Resting on a shelf in Tarragon's studio.

Oaks and Wrapped Sign

Tarragon offers an English landscape of pared-down simplicity.

Anna in a striped dress

A quick photo of a painting in progress. The dress will be in colour, and the big rectangle will too - it will be a hanging carpet of some sort. The pineapple like object will probably become a bust - but we'll see.

annihilation of time and space

Seen from the window of a high speed train, the world becomes somehow unreal, like the cells of an old hand-made cartoon.
The landscape, if it actually exists, is in France. The train was a TGV. The picture was painted later.

An annihilation of time and space

From the window of a high speed train, the world becomes a smear that verges on the abstract. Thankfully, the angularity of human constructions - in this case wind turbines - provides some punctuation.

This is the ninth in a series of nineteen paintings.

Portrait of Rachel

One part of a portrait triptych by Tarragon, who was channelling Alex Katz when he painted it.

She could have been a Della Robbia

Green field with sheep

sharp-eyed card

red hair, white wall

A snapshot at Tarragon's studio.

Sleep Well My Lovely

Tess of the d'Urbervilles

The story of Tess is one of my favourites. Most women distrust the expectations of men who have fallen in love with the protagonist of this book. Well they might. Most men respond to that distrust with the blunt retort of, "baby, I'm no Angel."

Please excuse the glare. It's the aura of light that follows Tess around. She can't help it.

Faye

This picture comes from a painting completed sometime last year.  Using old material can be a fruitful.  It is painted over a faint winter landscape depicting moonlight shining over a frozen bay covered with fresh snow that fell all day and all night during the 12th day of Christmas.  For some reason the scene of fresh snow and barred passage brought to my mind the story of the young Abe no Nakamaro, poet and timekeeper, who never returned to his homeland.  But that's all gone now.

Young Tess feels the strain of modernism.

There's something about portable computing technology that makes Tarragon think of 19th century literature, apparently. It's probably the stress of altered circumstances, as when a young maiden knifes the wrong man and ends up dead herself.

It was sketched on an iPad using the Procreate app, while waiting for the spaghetti puttanesca to finish.

Charlotte Passing

A portrait sketch in oils by Tarragon Smith.

New Studio

Tarragon recently abandoned his garret in Hackney for a new studio. The floral wallpaper will not be missed.

Here's a photo of a wall in the new space. He's hard at work on portraits, and indulging his love of pensive Victorian maidens.