Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4

Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4 by Frank Brennan, an oil painting of dark, wilting sunflowers and seed heads against a vivid green background.

Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4

Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Size: 100 × 100 × 4 cm

By the time I reached this fourth painting, I was thinking less about the darkness itself and more about the dawn — the future.

This series is my emotional response to the rise of populism, the return of old prejudices and the sense that much of the progress I had taken for granted throughout my entire adult life was beginning to unravel.

Rather than sink into that darkness, I wanted to respond with colour, life and possibility.

In many ways, sunflowers exemplify that. The bright yellow flower will inevitably wilt and die. But within the seed head lies the next generation — and with it, new beginnings.

 

Detail of Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4, showing a dark sunflower with curling orange-brown petals surrounding a textured green seed head.
Detail of Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4, showing a drooping sunflower with a large green seed head and orange-brown petals.
Detail of Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4, showing a wilted sunflower with dark curling petals and a deep green seed head.
Detail of Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4, showing two dark sunflower heads with textured green centres and curling petals.
Detail of Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4, showing intertwined dark stems, curling petals and several green sunflower seed heads.
Close detail of Responding to the Darkness Descending – Painting 4, showing the textured green and gold surface of a sunflower seed head.

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Other works

To see more, please click on one of the images below.

Sunflower by Frank Brennan, an oil painting with thick sculpted paint at the flower’s centre, flat angular seed-like forms radiating outwards and carved marks revealing the wood beneath.

Sunflower

Oil paint on Gessobord

Sunlight in the Morning by Frank Brennan, a square abstract painting with radiating green, yellow and orange forms bursting from the centre.

Sunlight in the Morning

Oil paint on canvas

I Come From a Small Island by Frank Brennan, a textured abstract painting with a pale blue, white and violet sculptural form against a black surface.

I Come From a Small Island
Oil paint and pigment on canvas