Alice is the guard dog, or at least that is what she tells herself. Perched high in a roughly built tree hut, she peers out through the slats, her white face framed by weathered timber and late-afternoon light. Below her, on the grass softened by daisies and long shadows, lies the object of her desire: a tennis ball. It rests innocently enough, glowing green against the fading day, close enough to see, far enough to be unreachable. The sun is sinking, and with it comes the quiet suggestion that this moment may not resolve itself before nightfall.
The title “Temptation” sets the tone immediately. Temptation is the pull towards something unwise, something irresistible, even when experience tells us how it will end. For Alice, temptation has a familiar shape, weight, and smell. The tennis ball is both a promise and a problem, a joy and an inevitable loss. She has loved many, and she has lost just as many. Her life could be measured not in years, but in balls found, balls destroyed, and balls mysteriously vanished. A kind of personal archive — a ball library — constantly being restocked and depleted.
The tree hut raises questions that the painting refuses to answer outright. How did Alice get up there? Was she lifted, did she climb, or did she simply will herself into this predicament through sheer enthusiasm? Is she standing guard, surveying her territory from above like a watchful sentry, or is she merely watching the world go by, temporarily trapped by her own curiosity? The ambiguity is deliberate. Alice is both watcher and watched, in control and completely undone by desire.
Light plays a quiet but crucial role. The warm glow of late afternoon wraps around the tree’s trunk and filters through the leaves, casting a sense of calm that contrasts with Alice’s inner conflict. Time feels suspended, yet moving inexorably forward. The ladder hangs uselessly beneath her, offering a route down that may as well not exist. The day is slipping away, and the ball remains untouched.
Alice’s relationship with the tennis ball began long ago, in the studio, during the painting of Fetch. As a puppy, she would sit patiently, watching from a corner as paint was applied, only to explode into motion the moment play was suggested. Since then, her skills have developed. She can strip the felt clean from a ball with surgical precision, crack its shell, and reduce it to fragments with unwavering focus. Destruction, for Alice, is not malice; it is simply part of the game.
She is also a performer. Alice delights in an audience. She will bounce a ball and catch it mid-air, grinning at the applause. She will “kick” a ball like a football, but only if she already has another one clamped triumphantly in her mouth. Rules, after all, are flexible things.
Temptation captures a pause between impulse and consequence. It is a portrait of longing, mischief, and self-inflicted dilemma. In Alice’s gaze is something deeply familiar: the knowledge that giving in may end badly, paired with the certainty that resisting would be far worse.
Temptation, Oil on Linen 125 cm x 95 cm
