Garden of Earthly Delights | Greg Latch Ink Drawing

Original ink drawing on paper by Greg Latch · Painter and mixed media artist · Available at Marcolina’s Fine Arts Gallery, Tampa, Florida · Ships worldwide

This is a drawing you have to walk up to. On a wide sheet of plain cream paper, one dense mass of fine black pen line sits in the middle and everything else is left empty. The mass is built like a bowl or a boat, with long curved ribbons sweeping around and over it, and inside it is a churning crowd of tiny faces, eyes, hands, figures, machines, and patterns, drawn in hatching, dots, and wavy lines. Touches of pale blue, pink, red, and yellow come through in small patches, and one gold shape sits on the left edge like a lemon. At the lower left a sleeping face is sketched in plain outline, and at the right edge a lone hand reaches out of the drawing.

The title points at Bosch, whose Garden of Earthly Delights is a crowd packed into a landscape where every corner is its own little scene. Greg takes the idea and turns it inward. Instead of a garden there is a mass of people and things heaped together, and the eye goes in and gets lost. The second half of the title, Three Months Gone By, reads like a date stamp, and a drawing this detailed does feel like the record of a long stretch of time.

The empty paper around it matters. The drawing starts in the middle and the lines thin out toward the edges, like a thought that has been building until it spills over. The two loose pieces, the sketched face and the reaching hand, sit outside the pile and look like the only things in the picture that are not caught up in it.

Collector’s Note

At 58 by 40 inches, this is a big work on paper, and it holds a wall like a painting would. It suits a study, a library, a dining room, or an office where people stand close and keep looking. The line work is so fine that a photograph only hints at it, so we recommend a virtual viewing or a visit in person, where we can show the detail up close. Works on paper are also sensitive to light, so we recommend hanging it away from direct sun, and we can advise on framing.

Acquisition

Available through Marcolina’s Fine Arts Gallery with worldwide shipping, full insurance, and professional art packaging. Payment plans available. Private viewings by appointment in Tampa, Florida. Virtual viewings available for collectors anywhere in the world. Payment plans are arranged directly with Marcolina, and every inquiry is answered personally within 24 hours. Each original comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. Contact us to inquire. New to collecting? Read our collector guide →

A standard shipping rate is charged at checkout. Once your work is packed, we calculate the actual shipping cost for its size and destination. If there is a difference, we will follow up to either invoice the additional amount or refund the difference, whichever applies.

About the Artist

Greg Latch was born in Mississippi and studied acting and fine art at the University of Mississippi. He later worked as a portrait artist in Jackson Square in New Orleans, and in Tampa he spent years as a nurse in the city’s jails and a psychiatric hospital. He did not come to painting through galleries or art school. He came to it by watching people, and it shows.

For thirteen years he painted at Artist Unlimited alongside artists with master’s degrees from around the world, learned from master painter Ray Paul, and taught drawing with live models. He builds his surfaces with oils, markers, and a range of knives, layering until the canvas turns almost sculptural, and he works from spontaneous drawings and mismatched imagery.

His work sits between portraiture and abstraction, and he says himself that it is not really about the image. He was featured in the Persona exhibition at Marcolina’s Fine Arts Gallery alongside Blake Emory, Guillo Pérez 3, and Mark Rendini. He lives and works in Tampa, Florida.

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