I've just sent some notes to the Joy Laurey Archive, detailing a conversation I had with Joy some twenty five years ago. Joy revealed that she had been influenced by a Chinese mask when designing the face of her puppet, Mr Turnip for the Children's T.V. programme 'Whirligig' in the 1950s.
The mask would have very low cheekbones so the top of the face would look very different from the bottom when viewed from very different angles.
As a child watching black and white T.V. I always imagined that Mr Turnip's facial expressions were changing, when all it took was the tilt of the head to convey different emotions.
In my painting 'The Enigma of the Chinese Mask' I have tried to show the emotions on Turnip's face (who represents me!) combined with landscape, to express my impressions of family life.
You can see two details from the painting on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
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