The Totem

Rising from a black, speckled hill, a teetering tower of striped gold and grey-green blocks stacks up the centre of the frame. Dark doorways open in its sides, eyeballs peer from ledges, curling cloud shapes snag on its corners, and at the very top a black bowl holds a single staring eye beneath a mushrooming plume. One more eye watches from the hill. Fine engraved lines and a thin gold border complete it.

Coral, peach, ochre and sage on black give it a warm, strange, hypnotic mood. The tower runs the full height, so the eye climbs block by block from the hill to the bowl at the top. A large print reveals hidden eyes in the stonework. It suits a study, a library corner or a gallery wall of odd things.