Hand-finished giclée prints on boxed canvas, the four shimmering pieces are A Forever Love, Love Me Do, All My Love and Love From Me To You – no ambiguity about the theme, then!
“Love is so precious, just like gold,” says Peter, who, with wife Jayne, developed the ever-expanding world of the Impossimals. “A lot of the original Impossimal images were about love, and the romance between Jayne and I. It’s been five years since we last did a summer collection, so we thought it was time to do another – and love, and its importance to its all, was an obvious theme.
“My aim has always been to make people happy. I simply take a gentle childhood, combine it with what makes me smile, and paint it.”
Romance is clearly an important inspiration for the couple – they moved house around 18 months ago on an entirely romantic whim. They had taken a day out to go walking on the Lincolnshire coast near Mablethorpe, and were discussing how they’d always fancied living by the sea.
“We happened to walk past the local estate agents and just popped in to see what was for sale,” Peter explains. “We couldn’t see anything we really liked the look of. And then a little voice from behind a desk said ‘so, you like the idea of living by the sea?’
“They showed us a house which had just come on the market – they didn’t even have it on display yet – and we fell in love with it.
“We went to take a look, and it’s just 400 yards from the sea. And there in the garden was a romantic, French-style swing, something we’d always wanted, hanging from a 200-year-old tree.
“That did it – you could say we bought the swing, and the house came with it!
“It also means that our local gallery now is the Artmarket gallery in Cottingham. It’s great to be so close to them.”
Peter and Jayne’s Impossimal collections range from the romantic to the sweet-toothed, and include the Lost Impossimals – crazy creations with an historical twist – and Lost Alice, a tribute to the much-loved Lewis Carroll classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
As well as original oils and prints, the many fans of Peter’s work can invest in resin sculptures and small collectables.
The Artmarket gallery recently commissioned Peter to paint The Secret Pantry, inspired by the Michelin-starred Pipe and Glass at South Dalton, near Beverley, which was unveiled at a special Impossimal Dinner Party held at the venue. A highlight of the sold-out evening was an auction for the maquette (small-scale model) created by Peter and Jayne for the painting, which raised over £3,000 for the Castle Hill Hospital Cancer Unit.