I have a fascination with the paintings of the American artist, Edward Hopper. Somehowwhether by technique, imagination or subject matterhe is able to create the most compelling and evocative scenes, which stir my imagination.
One of my favourites is Automat an oil painted by him in 1927.
A young woman with a yellow felt hat sits absolutely alone in a barren restaurant drinking a cup of coffee. I look at this and immediately feel her isolation and loneliness as if it were my own. Is she running away? What thoughts are in her mind as she stares into the cup?
Right away, Hopper has got us speculating, as he does with all his paintings. Where did she come from? Where is she going? You’re caught right in the middle of a story which you can “read” backwards or forwards in time. I was so taken with this painting that the woman in it became the inspiration for a character in a short story, The Thief, and now a novel which I am writing. Struck by her isolation and self containment, I called her Celia.
I search the painting to see what emotions Hopper creates and how he does it. Behind the solitary woman is a large window, blackened by...