Stag Party - £950

18” wide x 24” high. Oils on 22mm deep wooden cradled panel. Ready to hang.

With Stag Party, I wanted to explore the fascinating and chaotic tension between primal instinct and romantic idealism.

The concept for this piece began when I reflected on the lyrics to the classic 80s power ballad, Glory of Love. The lines of the song represent a highly romanticised, almost chivalric view of devotion. I began to wonder what it would look like to clash that polished, human ideal against the raw, unfiltered reality of the natural world.

On the canvas, that thought manifested as two stags locked in combat, capturing nature's fierce, elemental struggle for dominance and the right to mate. To heighten the contradiction, I painted the stags against a soft, dreamlike wash of pinks and atmospheric pastels, embedding the song's lyrics directly into the background like a lingering echo.

The title, Stag Party, is my way of injecting a layer of tongue-in-cheek irony into the piece. While we know a "stag party" as a modern pre-wedding ritual filled with revelry before a lifetime commitment, here it takes on a literal, primal meaning. Pairing that title with a brutal animal battle and lyrics about "fighting for honour" allows for a playful, slightly satirical commentary on masculinity, romance, and the heavy expectations we place on love.

For me, this painting captures a duality. It suggests that behind our softest, most romantic notions of devotion, there is always an element of fierce, untamed struggle.