CLiFF HANLEY

new stuff

Study of Gregory 1

Oil on canvas

I make portraits from photos, by commission - they’re excellent surprise presents and valuable mementos. Please ask for details at cliffhanley@hotmail.com

Bongo Lady 4

Oil on canvas

The dancing, eatshoutdrinkshout carried on as the band took flight again. Oscar  feeling his way down the corridor to the gent's, collided with a girl in her thirties headed for the ladies and waited for her to come out again.

She could roll over. She's young, not wrinkled, and drunker than me. Big eyes.

‘Ah, you again. Sorry, I keep bumping into you.’

‘Are you Oscar Early? It's hard to see in this light.’

(yes!) ‘Yes. But tonight I'm just being… myself.’ (give her the eye crinkle)   

‘I just caught the tail end of that Ken Russell season at the Film Theatre.’

‘Did you? I covered it, you know, on my programme.’

‘Ye-ahs - all the telly stuff - wossit - Isadora Duncan.’ she waved her fragile, bared arms in a sand-dancing pose -

‘Vivienne Pickles?’ he asked. She mimed neck breaking, eyes bulging

 ‘And the Debussy Film?’

‘Missed that one,’ she replied, ‘I remember it though - Oliver Reed-’

‘the girl in the white T-shirt…’

‘… he was quite young’

‘Getting shot with arrows  - and enjoying it’

‘And enjoying it. -Was she?’

‘Extraordinary. You know, the reason I remember that one so well is, not long before seeing it I'd had a dream that looked quite like it…’

Raised eyebrows

‘but it was a stage full of girls in white, all posing, nubile and rigid, with bows, and several of them shot. Hah -can't begin to imagine where that came from!’

‘Excuse me. I'm going for some fags.’

-This is an excerpt from my first  novel . Don’t forget where you saw it first...

The ‘Untitled’ artfair  took place in London, May 29th 2009.

You can see most of my pictures here up close at

http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=YH_dSpVr_20

Bob Devereux being the sea and the sky. Sssh