Scent of Gardenias: Sicily (2018)

This painting began to impose itself on my visual mind while Venetia and I were having dinner at the Villa Athena overlooking the Concorde temple in Agrigento Sicily. The gardenias were invisible but the scent was strong. The moon was shining through broken clouds and in the distance the glow of lights from the suburbs of Agrigento silhouetted the temple (one of the most intact Greek temples outside Greece). It had to be reimagined and painted in a full blooded Romantic style.