Raymond lives with his mum and his cat, drives a Hillman Imp the colour of weak tea, and analyses everything.

At the buffet, he is carefully studying the sausage roll to vol-au-vent ratio and calculating the best moment to pounce for the warm refills.

His note to self includes asking Jean if she is alright and remembering to pick Bridie up for a lift.

An original 6 × 6 × 1.5 inch character painting, presented inside a unique found Relic Box with memorabilia and fragments from Raymond’s imagined life.

Raymond at the Buffet Character Painting– Original Relic Box

Raymond is the office nerd.

He lives with his mum and his cat, drives a Hillman Imp the colour of weak tea, and analyses everything. He can’t help it. He’s in accounts.

Here, he is caught in a moment of great importance: studying the sausage roll to vol-au-vent ratio and calculating the optimum time to pounce in the hope of securing the warm refills.

Because Raymond knows that a buffet is never just a buffet. It is strategy.

This one-off Relic Box combines an original 6 × 6 × 1.5 inch character painting with fragments from Raymond’s imagined life, presented inside a unique found box.

Among the clues are notes to self, practical reminders and memorabilia from a life lived carefully and observantly. His handwritten list includes asking Jean if she is alright (perhaps he is intuitive to her trepidation), buying polo mints and a new cassette for the Imp and remembering to pick Bridie up for a lift at 6.30 — small details which reveal that, beneath the analysis, Raymond is also thoughtful and kind.

My Relic Boxes are built around the traces ordinary lives leave behind — handwritten notes, keepsakes, photographs, scent and scraps of social history that can suddenly bring a whole personality back into the room.

Raymond is part of my ongoing collection of narrative character paintings exploring humour, memory, social history and the familiar people we feel we’ve known all our lives.

Details

Original character painting Raymond at The Buffet 6 × 6 × 1.5 inches Presented inside a unique found Relic Box Includes handwritten note, memorabilia and ephemera from Raymond’s imagined life Original artwork — only one available Signed by Sue Dewhurst

Art with a story — even if it isn’t yours.

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