Rains Every Six Years

By Barry Hammond

Mixed media on canvas

20 cm x 20 cm x 4 cm

Price on request

Meaning and visual impact:

I was recently was on a trek through the eastern desert in Egypt which is located between the Red Sea and the Nile and about half way between Cairo and the Sudan border. I asked my Bedouin guide when it last rained in what was obviously a parched desert and he said it “rains every six years”. Incredibly it rained on that trek - lucky me!

The image here is what I saw - a bleak, dried up, cracked, hard desert plain devoid of life with a six year storm on the horizon. We also got a flat tire here too. The canvas can easily stand on its own on a mantel or shelf for display.

Technical aspects:

This small canvas was covered with sand and glue and then sculpted with a knife to form the textures and cracks. After the substrate dried oil paint was applied in thin layers to build up the tones. As the desert recedes in the background it gets ever darker towards the horizon.