A David Bowie Painting: Inside The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones
Updated: Sep 9
Part Two: Beyond the Masks
We left David Bowie at a door in the Berlin Wall.
Now we're going through it.
Behind us are Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke and the extraordinary procession of identities that dominated the second painting.
Ahead, the story changes.
The third painting looks beyond the great personas and into the much wider creative life of David Bowie.
Actor.
Performer.
Artist.
Collaborator.
Husband.
Father.
The masks haven't disappeared completely, but they no longer control the story.
So let's walk through the wall.
There is a staircase waiting for us.
And coming down it is a clown dragging a bath containing the Elephant Man.
We're definitely still in Bowie territory.
Chapter One
Beyond the Music
Follow the painted corridor through the Berlin Wall and we enter Canvas Three.
The world changes immediately.
The city gives way to a dark landscape filled with impossible staircases twisting through the composition.
And coming down those stairs is one of the stranger combinations in the painting.
Bowie as the Pierrot clown from Ashes to Ashes is dragging a bath.
Inside it sits the Elephant Man.
This is where Bowie's world expands beyond the personas he created for music and into another side of his creativity.
Bowie the actor.
The Elephant Man
Bowie played John Merrick in the stage production of The Elephant Man.
What interested me was that he performed the role without elaborate prosthetics. He used his own body, posture and movement to create Merrick's physicality.
For someone so associated with extraordinary costumes, make-up and visual reinvention, I found that fascinating.
But naturally, that isn't why I put him in a bath.
The Bath
During my research I came across a story from the production that immediately appealed to my sense of humour.
There was a scene involving Bowie naked in a bath, and I read that members of the stage crew would play tricks on him by filling or decorating the bath with pornography and various inappropriate objects.
There was no way I was going to discover something like that and then give John Merrick a dignified entrance into my painting.
So the bath came with him.
And yes, if you look closely, there are some deliberately phallic additions.
These are the details I loved finding while researching Bowie. His story could move from something serious to something completely ridiculous in a heartbeat.
My painting does the same.
Ashes to Ashes
Pulling the bath is Bowie dressed as the Pierrot clown from Ashes to Ashes.
This gave me a wonderful way of colliding two completely different parts of Bowie's career.
Theatre meets music.
John Merrick is being dragged through the painting by Pierrot.
But Ashes to Ashes also reaches backwards into a much earlier part of Bowie's story because it brings Major Tom back.
We first encountered Major Tom at the end of Canvas One, sitting inside the telescope that directed us away from Earth and into Canvas Two.
Now he resurfaces.
I liked bringing that connection back into the painting. Bowie could revisit something he had created years earlier and give it another life.
So the Pierrot figure isn't simply there because I liked the costume.
He carries an old Bowie story back into the painting with him.
Into the Labyrinth
The staircases themselves take us into another of Bowie's most recognisable acting roles.
Jareth, the Goblin King in Labyrinth.
I could have simply painted Jareth, but I didn't want one character dominating this part of Bowie's story.
Instead, I painted his world.
What I remembered so vividly about Labyrinth was the impossible architecture: staircases climbing in different directions, figures appearing above and below one another and a world where normal perspective seemed to have been abandoned.
That was far more useful to me than another portrait.
So I created my own labyrinth.
The staircases twist through Canvas Three, carrying the eye from one Bowie reference to another while becoming part of the structure of the painting itself.
Punch and Judy — And the Scary Monsters
At the bottom of the stairs sits a Punch and Judy stage.
This came from another detail I discovered about Bowie. In the late 1960s he regularly visited Pollock's Toy Museum in London, with its collection of Victorian toy theatres, old dolls and wooden Punch and Judy puppets.
I loved the connection because it offered another glimpse into the theatrical influences surrounding the young Bowie.
So Punch and Judy found their way into my painting.
At the feet of the little theatre are scary monsters, a direct reference to Bowie's album Scary Monsters.
Again, I took the words literally.
If Bowie gave me scary monsters, I painted scary monsters.
Bowie on Screen
The stairs also gave me somewhere to hide more of Bowie's acting and musical history.
Follow them and other clues begin to appear.
A prisoner sits in a cage.
A Christmas tree appears beside him.
A vampire hangs nearby.
There is a little drummer boy.
Red shoes wait elsewhere in the landscape.
None of them is random.
Each belongs to another Bowie story.
I didn't want to fill Canvas Three with portraits or reproduce a series of film posters. I wanted the viewer to discover his screen career in the same way I had discovered so much of Bowie while researching him — through strange details and unexpected connections.
The Elephant Man becomes a man in a bath.
Ashes to Ashes becomes Pierrot pulling him down the stairs.
Labyrinth becomes the architecture surrounding them.
And those stairs lead us onwards.
Because there are plenty more Bowie worlds hidden amongst them.
Chapter Two
Bowie on Screen: Prisoners, Vampires and Red Shoes
The impossible staircases carry us deeper into Canvas Three, where Bowie's films and music begin to overlap.
I didn't want to paint a catalogue of movie roles or album covers. I preferred taking one recognisable detail and turning it into a clue.
So this part of the painting becomes another puzzle.
A prisoner.
A Christmas tree.
A vampire.
A little drummer boy.
Red shoes.
Each has its own Bowie story.
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
For Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, I chose the image of Bowie buried in the sand with only his head visible.
I hadn't seen the film when I created the painting, so I was working from the imagery and information I discovered during my research.
I also wanted to make his character's imprisonment immediately apparent.
So I placed him inside a cage.
Prisoner.
Buried figure.
And then I added a Christmas tree.
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
Sometimes my references are deeply buried.
This one really isn't.
The Hunger
Hanging from the cage is a vampire, taking us straight into The Hunger.
Again, I didn't need to paint another portrait of Bowie.
The vampire was enough.
This is how much of Canvas Three works. Before you know the story, an object can appear completely peculiar.
Once you know the reference, it clicks into place.
The Little Drummer Boy
Nearby is a little drummer boy.
He refers to Bowie's wonderfully unexpected Christmas performance with Bing Crosby.
I loved the unlikely pairing of the two of them, but I didn't need to paint Crosby to tell the story.
The little drummer boy does it for me.
One small figure.
One very Bowie connection.
Let's Dance
Then come the red shoes.
This time Bowie had already given me the image.
Let's Dance tells us to put on our red shoes.
So I did.
There was no need to complicate it.
By this point in the paintings, objects can carry an entire Bowie reference without Bowie himself having to appear.
A lightning bolt.
A spider.
A pair of red shoes.
Sometimes the simplest clue is the strongest.
China Girl
China Girl gave me another opportunity for literal wordplay.
I created a Chinese rock carrying the symbol for China Girl.
I enjoyed pulling Bowie's titles apart like this and rebuilding them as images.
They become little visual riddles hidden within the larger painting.
You might not understand them immediately.
But once you do, they have a reason for being there.
Serious Moonlight
Above this strange world is an intense circle of moonlight.
This is my reference to Bowie's Serious Moonlight era.
Rather than painting the tour or another image of Bowie, I took the words themselves and made them part of the environment.
The moonlight is deliberately strong and almost unnaturally concentrated, shining through the darkness above the staircases.
Serious Moonlight, quite literally.
Everything Begins to Collide
By Canvas Three, I no longer felt any need to keep Bowie's music, acting and performances in separate compartments.
They belonged to the same creative life.
That is why a prisoner can sit beneath Labyrinth stairs while a vampire hangs from his cage, a Christmas tree stands nearby and red shoes wait elsewhere in the landscape.
The connections don't need to be sensible.
They need to be Bowie.
And as we move beyond the staircases, the landscape begins to open again.
A strange machine appears.
The spider returns — this time in glass.
And beyond it, mountains begin to rise.
We are heading towards another side of Bowie.
Chapter Three
The Returning Spider: Art, Tibet and Another Bowie
As we move further through Canvas Three, the landscape changes again.
The impossible staircases continue, but other parts of Bowie's life begin to appear amongst them.
At the bottom sits a machine built from instruments.
Beside it, a large glass spider reaches beyond the painted world.
Above them, the mountains of Tibet rise through the canvas.
And climbing those mountains is Iman.
Tin Machine
Tin Machine gave me another opportunity to take a name literally.
If Bowie had a band called Tin Machine, I was going to give him a machine.
So I created one from musical instruments, gears and mechanical parts.
Hidden within it is one of the more outrageous details I discovered during my research. I had read that one of the guitarists had been known to play his guitar with a phallic object.
Naturally, I included it.
Not every reference needs a deep meaning.
Some simply made me laugh.
The Glass Spider
Beside Tin Machine is one of the largest physical additions to the canvas.
The Glass Spider.
I designed the piece and commissioned my artist friend in New Zealand to create it in stained glass. She was also a huge Bowie fan, which made her involvement particularly special.
But this isn't just any spider.
During my research I discovered Heteropoda davidbowie, a real species of spider named after David Bowie, its name connecting back to Bowie's own spider imagery and the Glass Spider era.
So I modelled my Glass Spider on the actual spider named after Bowie, using its distinctive yellow and amber colouring in the stained glass.
Then there are the flames.
Bowie's Glass Spider Tour ended in New Zealand, and Bowie later told the story of the enormous spider set being taken into a field and set alight after the tour.
That immediately gave me the fire behind my spider.
And there was another connection I particularly loved.
I was creating this artwork in New Zealand too.
So Bowie brought his Glass Spider to New Zealand, where its story supposedly ended in flames. Years later, in that same country, I designed my own Glass Spider, modelled on the real spider that carried his name, and commissioned another Bowie-loving artist to make it for me in stained glass.
It felt like the story had travelled in a circle.
Bowie's Glass Spider came to New Zealand.
And in New Zealand, my Glass Spider was born.
The Mountains of Tibet
Behind the spider, the painting opens into a vast mountainous landscape.
These are the mountains of Tibet and Everest, representing Bowie's long-standing interest in Buddhism and Tibet.
After so many invented characters and theatrical worlds, the mountains introduce something different.
This isn't another persona.
It is something Bowie himself was drawn towards.
His interest in Buddhism began when he was young and remained with him throughout his life, so I wanted it to have a significant physical presence within the final canvas.
The mountains tower above everything around them.
The Buddha of Suburbia
Within the mountains I placed my interpretation of The Buddha of Suburbia.
Rather than simply writing the title somewhere, I turned it into architecture, combining a Buddhist temple with something of the character of the Tower of London.
Buddha.
Suburbia.
London.
Another Bowie title pulled apart and rebuilt as an image.
Iman
Then, amongst the mountains, is Iman.
I placed her climbing upwards through this landscape, with Bowie above.
Her arrival is important because she is different from so many of the people we have encountered throughout the triptych.
She isn't a character.
She isn't a persona.
She isn't something Bowie invented for the stage.
She is part of his real life.
After Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, the Thin White Duke and the many roles Bowie played on screen, Iman brings us towards something much more personal.
The man behind all those creations.
And from here, the final part of the painting begins to move towards Bowie the husband, Bowie the father, Bowie the artist — and eventually back towards David Jones himself.
Chapter Four
Behind Bowie: Love, Family and the Man Himself
As we move beyond the Glass Spider and into the mountains, the painting becomes more personal.
We have spent much of the triptych following the things Bowie created for the world: music, personas, performances, films and extraordinary visual identities.
Now we begin to encounter the people who belonged to his life beyond them.
And one of the most important is Iman.
Iman — Guardian of His Creative Heart
I placed Iman climbing through the Tibetan landscape, but at her feet is something very deliberate.
A Minotaur.
The Minotaur comes from Bowie's own visual art, where he depicted the creature with exaggerated, oversized genitalia. I wanted to take this powerful creature from Bowie's own creative world and give it another meaning within mine.
Iman holds it by a chain, and despite its strength and masculinity, it sits at her feet almost like a loyal dog.
For me, the Minotaur became Bowie's creative heart.
I wasn't suggesting that Iman controlled him. Quite the opposite. I wanted to show trust.
This formidable creature represents something enormously valuable that Bowie has willingly placed in her hands. His creativity, his vulnerability, his heart — she has been entrusted with it.
And she guards it fiercely.
That is why I wanted the Minotaur to remain powerful. Iman hasn't weakened or diminished it. She simply holds its chain because it has been given to her willingly and completely.
After all the personas, characters and creatures Bowie created for the world, I wanted Iman's importance to be unmistakable.
She holds something that belongs to Bowie himself — his creative heart — and he trusts her to guard it.
Family
From Iman, the imagery moves naturally towards family.
Bowie had spent decades changing names and creating identities, and even within his family there is another curious play on names.
His son was born Zowie Bowie and later became known as Duncan Jones.
I couldn't ignore the connection.
David Jones became David Bowie.
Zowie Bowie became Duncan Jones.
In an artwork called The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones, names changing and identities developing seemed particularly appropriate.
His daughter Alexandria, known as Lexi, also belongs within this more personal part of the painting.
Here I wasn't interested in creating another grand Bowie mythology.
These references are about family.
Moonflowers
Around this later section are moonflowers.
After the ruined cities, black holes, Mars, darkness and impossible architecture elsewhere in the triptych, I wanted something living to enter the landscape.
The flowers soften it.
They also connect naturally with the moon imagery running through this final part of the painting.
Earlier, celestial objects belonged to Major Tom, Starmen and Bowie's science-fiction worlds.
Here they feel quieter.
More personal.
The Cat's Whiskers
Hidden amongst the larger imagery are the cat's whiskers.
This came from a wonderfully silly Bowie moment I discovered during my research.
During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2004, Bowie jokingly used the expression “cat's whiskers.”When Ellen questioned him about it, he claimed it was the only expression he knew and that he used it for everything — whether he was happy or depressed.
It was Bowie being playful, and that appealed enormously to me.
So, as I had done with so many of his lyrics, titles and peculiar remarks throughout these paintings, I took him literally.
I painted the cat's whiskers.
It's a tiny detail, but that's part of the fun of this painting. Some Bowie references are impossible to miss.
Others are waiting for you to find them.
Hours
Hours has a particular place in this painting because it connects with time itself.
I was painting Bowie's life while his life and creative career were still continuing. This wasn't a retrospective of someone whose story had already ended. Bowie was still creating, and that meant the painting could never be completely fixed while I was working on it.
The reference to Hours therefore became particularly apt.
I was trying to compress decades of Bowie's life into three canvases while time was still moving forward for both of us.
And that would soon become very real.
While I was still creating the triptych, Bowie unexpectedly released new music.
Suddenly, the man whose past I was painting had caught up with my canvas.
And I had to make room for the present.
Earthling
Then comes Earthling.
The Union Jack coat made this Bowie instantly recognisable and visually irresistible to me.
But I don't see Earthling in the same way that I see Ziggy Stardust or Halloween Jack.
This isn't Bowie disappearing into another great invented character.
It is Bowie still experimenting with how he presents himself.
That distinction matters.
Earlier in the triptych, the personas can almost overwhelm the man who created them.
Here, Bowie seems much more comfortable simply being Bowie.
Holding the Moon
Towards the end of the painting, Bowie appears dressed in his Earthling Union Jack coat, with the moon hovering above his hand.
Its position is deliberate.
The way it floats above his palm is a nod back to Jareth's crystal ball in Labyrinth. Earlier in Canvas Three I used the impossible staircases to reference the film; here I bring a little piece of Jareth back.
But instead of a crystal ball, I gave Bowie the moon.
The moon carries another, much more personal connection.
Bowie's son Duncan Jones directed the film Moon, so it also becomes a reference to his son and Bowie's family life.
In the centre of the moon I placed the symbol for life, another deliberate play on Duncan's name and the family connection I wanted contained within it.
So what initially looks like one simple image actually holds several Bowie stories.
Jareth's crystal ball.Duncan's Moon.The symbol of life.
And Bowie holds them all together in the palm of his hand.
Towards David Jones
That is what this final part of the painting begins to do.
The spectacle hasn't disappeared, but it no longer needs to dominate Bowie.
Around him are family, art, Buddhism, the mountains and references to a lifetime of creativity.
We began these paintings looking through the windows of a house at David Jones.
Then we almost lost him amongst David Bowie.
Ziggy Stardust.
Aladdin Sane.
Halloween Jack.
The Thin White Duke.
Actor.
Performer.
Artist.
But here, towards the end, I begin to see the man again.
And just when I thought I was approaching the end of the story I had researched, Bowie did something I could never have planned.
While I was still painting him, he came back.
And suddenly the story wasn't history anymore.
Chapter Five
Where Are We Now? — Bowie Changes the Painting
There is a problem with painting the life of someone who is still alive.
They can change the ending.
When I began The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones in November 2012, Bowie had been largely absent from public musical life for years.
I was working through his past, researching his life and fitting decades of music, characters, films, art and stories across the three canvases.
Then, while I was still painting him, Bowie suddenly returned.
Where Are We Now?
On 8 January 2013, his sixty-sixth birthday, Bowie released Where Are We Now?
There had been no great build-up. After years away from releasing new music, suddenly there was a new Bowie song.
And I was in the middle of painting David Bowie.
The timing was extraordinary.
Until then, I had been responding to Bowie's history.
Now his story was moving while I was painting it.
I couldn't ignore that.
The artwork had to change with him.
Back to Berlin
Where Are We Now? took Bowie back to Berlin, somewhere we had already travelled through on Canvas Two.
That gave me a wonderful connection across the triptych.
Earlier, Berlin had been part of Bowie's life as it happened. We followed him there after the Thin White Duke, and the painted corridor through the Berlin Wall drew us towards Canvas Three.
Now the older Bowie was looking back at that same city.
Berlin had become memory.
The painting was beginning to circle back on itself.
Time Catches Up With the Painting
This also strengthened the references to time that were already appearing towards the end of Canvas Three.
I was trying to compress decades of Bowie's life into three paintings, but time hadn't stopped simply because I had started painting him.
Bowie was still moving forward.
Suddenly the subject of my painting had caught up with the painting itself.
I loved that.
For an artwork about a man who continually changed direction, it seemed entirely appropriate that he should alter my plans before I had even finished them.
Another Bowie
The Bowie who returned with Where Are We Now? also felt very different from the great personas I had painted earlier.
There was no Ziggy Stardust.
No Halloween Jack.
No Thin White Duke.
This was an older Bowie looking backwards.
By this stage of my painting, that fitted perfectly.
Canvas Three had already begun moving away from the great invented characters and towards Bowie himself — his art, Buddhism, Iman, family and the man behind the performance.
Now Bowie had unexpectedly given me another piece of that story himself.
I Didn't Know the Ending
What is important is that I didn't know what was coming next.
When I painted this triptych, Bowie was alive.
I couldn't know that more music would follow, and I certainly couldn't know that he would die in January 2016.
So this was never created as a memorial.
It was a celebration of a living artist whose story was still unfolding.
I had every hope that Bowie might one day see it.
Sadly, he never did.
Two Bowie Fans
I wasn't creating it entirely alone either.
Two enormous Bowie fans were urging me on.
One was my dear friend in New Zealand, the glass artist who helped me realise some of the physical elements within the work, including the lightning bolt and Glass Spider.
The other was my friend in Wales.
Their enthusiasm mattered. They knew Bowie far better than I had when I began, and their excitement encouraged me to keep digging deeper.
I also sent an image of the finished triptych to the author of the Bowie biography I had used for much of my research.
More than a decade later, frustratingly, I can no longer remember which book it was.
But I remember his response.
He loved it.
That meant a great deal to me.
Where Are We Now?
There is something rather perfect about that title appearing towards the end of this artwork.
Where Are We Now?
Look back at where we started.
David Jones inside a house.
His family through the windows.
The masks waiting in the attic.
Then Major Tom takes us away from Earth.
Ziggy arrives.
The Spiders travel from Mars.
Halloween Jack and the Thin White Duke appear.
We pass through Berlin, enter the impossible staircases of Labyrinth, encounter Bowie the actor and artist, the Glass Spider, Tibet, Iman and his family.
And now Bowie himself is looking backwards.
But I don't think we need to retrace every step.
There is really only one place left for this journal to go.
Back to David Jones.
Chapter Six
Finding David Jones
We began with David Jones.
A boy inside a house, family glimpsed through windows and a trunk of masks waiting in the attic.
Then David Jones became David Bowie.
Across the three canvases we have watched those masks multiply into some of the most recognisable characters in music.
But this final chapter isn't really about listing them all again.
It is about the man behind them.
The Masks
When I first placed the masks inside Davy's trunk, they represented the identities waiting to emerge.
By the end of the triptych, we know what they became.
Bowie discovered that identity could be played with. He could create a character, inhabit it and then leave it behind when it no longer served him.
The masks that began hidden in an attic eventually spread across the entire artwork.
But underneath every one of them was still David Jones.
The Metamorphosis of the Painting
Something else transformed while I was creating this work.
The painting itself.
It began with oil on canvas, but the story kept demanding more.
Paint became stained glass.
Metal projected beyond the surface.
Major Tom sat inside a telescope.
Bowie became a giant metal spider.
The iconic lightning bolt became stained glass.
The spider returned later in glass.
Even the spaces between the canvases became part of the journey.
I stopped worrying about whether it was still simply a painting.
If an idea needed another material, I used it.
That freedom became an important part of what Bowie gave me creatively.
I wasn't trying to imitate him.
I connected with his willingness to experiment.
Why I Painted Bowie
That connection is also part of why I chose Bowie in the first place.
I loved his humour.
The more I researched him, the more little stories, strange remarks and ridiculous connections I found that appealed to my own way of thinking.
A toothless old woman becomes rock and roll.
Spiders become musicians.
A phrase about cat's whiskers becomes actual whiskers.
The Laughing Gnome gives me an excuse to put myself in a chimney with honey.
That playfulness gave me permission to have fun with him.
I wasn't interested in creating a solemn portrait of an icon.
I wanted to play with Bowie.
The Bowie I Found
I never met David Bowie, so I would never claim that these paintings reveal the "real" man.
They reveal my interpretation of him after months of reading, researching and creating.
What fascinated me was his curiosity.
Music wasn't enough.
He explored theatre, film, fashion, visual art, performance, Buddhism and whatever else caught his imagination.
He seemed unwilling to put creativity into a box.
I understood that.
My own work doesn't particularly like boxes either.
Three Paintings — One Journey
When I look at the finished triptych, I see three distinct parts of the same journey.
Canvas One belongs to David Jones.
We begin with family, childhood and early music. The masks are waiting, but Bowie hasn't fully emerged. Gradually the ordinary world loosens until Major Tom finally takes us away from Earth.
Canvas Two belongs to Bowie's great personas.
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars take over. Aladdin Sane strikes through the painting in stained glass. Halloween Jack appears, followed by the darker world of the Thin White Duke.
Then we reach Berlin.
And Bowie becomes Bowie again.
The painted corridor through the Berlin Wall draws us towards Canvas Three.
Here the story expands beyond the rock personas.
Actor.
Artist.
Buddhism.
The Glass Spider.
Iman.
Family.
And finally the older Bowie, dressed in his Earthling coat with the moon hovering above his hand.
The three canvases are different because Bowie is different within each one.
Together they make the metamorphosis.
The People Who Encouraged Me
I had two Bowie fans urging me on while I created the work.
My dear glass-artist friend in New Zealand was a huge fan, as was my friend in Wales.
Their enthusiasm became part of the experience.
Bowie never got to see the finished triptych, which saddens me. I would have loved to know what he made of it — particularly some of the more ridiculous references.
I suspect I would have been most interested in whether I could make him laugh.
Back to the Attic
And so we return to where we started.
The house.
The attic.
The trunk marked Davy.
And the masks inside it.
When I painted that trunk, we hadn't yet travelled through everything those masks would become.
Now we have.
But after all the research, I don't think I discovered one definitive David Bowie hiding underneath them.
Perhaps that was never the point.
What I found was the extraordinary creative journey of a man who seemed continually willing to ask:
What can I become next?
And somewhere between David Jones and David Bowie, his imagination pushed mine somewhere new too.
That is why these three paintings belong together.
Not as three portraits of David Bowie.
But as one journey of transformation.
The Metamorphic Life of Davy Jones.
START AT THE BEGINNING
Begin inside the attic with David Jones and follow the extraordinary creation of Bowie, Ziggy Stardust and the personas that followed.
YOU'VE READ THE ART. NOW SEE THE WHOLE WORK.
Now Have a look at the Creation:
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