Still Life: Autumn Fashion

The bold and colourful work of Caulfield can be termed 'pop art' because of his use of highly unconventional techniques and the ironic position that he adopts towards high art.

However, Caulfield does not aspire to the same choice of subject matter as American pop artists. Instead of painting advertising products, celebrities and other features of popular culture, he paints interiors, horses, churches and everyday objects.

In 'Still life: Autumn fashion' Caulfield skilfully layers pictorial elements, combining schematic techniques with real textures. The leeks, oysters and vessels of the painting are arranged in a disparate way to enable us to find our way into the picture. The play between the two worlds of reality and decoration is further intensified by Caulfield's treatment of two of the oysters in their real texture rather than in a graphic manner.

Caulfield has always been interested in transforming ordinary things into extraordinary ones, perhaps suggesting that the role of the modern artist is to make people see and examine things in a different light. As he has noted: "what we call inspiration results from a careful sifting of everyday experience."