Mystery Paintings
Many of the paintings are not all they seem. If you look carefully you will notice that there are scenes and figures from real and fictional stories. They are not easy to spot as Ken is painting what he sees carefully but somehow he has managed to incorporate and hide things he finds interesting.
Some paintings are a 'collage' of many images and some images become part of others forming a 'kaleidoscope'. Others use the cliffs as a theatre upon which many aspects of a story are told and some are a lot more straightforward and may have animals that are easier to spot. The more you look the more you will see. For a long time no one had noticed this aspect to many of Kens paintings. See more hidden work on the Before Banksy page.
NB: Photos are reduced quality and watermarked to protect the copyright. We apologise for not being able to give full detailed pictures.
There is much more going on in this scene than meets the eye. Perhaps this is Ken's most unusual painting. Look carefully at the cliffs in the foreground and in the background. The more you look the more you will see. At every point one image becomes another and when turned upside down new images appear the right way up. If you cannot see anything just keep looking.
Island Magic
The painting was done during the year 2000 and seems to include many writers including Victor Hugo, Denys Corbet, Marjorie Ozanne and perhaps others such as Elizabeth Goudge and Metivier. All were Guernsey writers or had strong connections with Guernsey.
This is a beautiful calm scene or is it? Is there a struggle between life and death going on? In a different way to the picture above there are many things going on depending on whether you zoom into an area or zoom out. One story illustrated could be 'Toilers of the sea' by Victor Hugo.
Look very carefully at the cliff on the left of the painting. It is a face but the eye becomes the head of a dark skinned lady with a very pale lady holding a baby in front of her. There are numerous other people around.
Hidden in the painting is also a beautiful lady and a King. The story illustrated may be from Elizabeth Goudge's "A Child From The Sea" which is based on King Charles ll and his secret marriage to Lucy Walter. There are many other images hidden including a white horse and a white lady (witch). This is probably therefore a compilation of several of Mrs Goudge's stories. She often came to Guernsey as a child and got ideas for her stories from Guernsey folk law.
Elizabeth Goudge was a distant relation to Ken Hill which may be the reason he featured her stories in the painting.
Ken's portrait is also in the painting. He is wearing his hat as seen in one of his own self portraits.
One of Ken's best cliff paintings but is there another story being told? It is hard to see but not all is as it seems! The colours in the cliffs and water are very well done and I hope the search for images does not spoil the beautiful view of the painting.
This painting is filled with Demons, Ghosts, monsters and Ghouls. Some of them 'pop' out at you. Every bit of this painting is full of images, from the smallest plants to the biggest rocks. They are in different directions and one image is part of another. In the middle of the painting there is a man sitting and painting. You have to turn the picture 90 degrees to the right and enlarge the center.
The more you look at this painting the more you will ask 'how on earth has he done it?' every brush stroke has been carefully placed and is often part of several images. What story is being told? We do not know yet but would love some feedback.
Aspects of several popular children's stories are hidden in this painting. This painting really is a Kaleidoscope of images where one image becomes part of another depending on the position you are looking at and how far away you are. There are so many images it will take anyone a very long time to see them all.
There is a lot more hidden in other paintings so keep an eye out for anything which seems slightly unusual and study hard!