Pilots run away wife

Joy made the point that life seldom turns out the way one wants it to and this painting is one of those stories. Apparently she was a pilot’s wife who ran away from the marriage and devasted the pilot. Later he married again but as Joy said “the new wife probably threw the painting in the trash!”. Although Joy wasn’t a one to stick to a small palette of colours I would say that this portrait has an unusual devotion to variations of yellow ochre and of course that is what ties the whole thing together. The commission was taken from the very small only photograph that the pilot had and the mood is kept subdued here in the facial features that are pretty, but somewhat sad and thoughtful.