Homage to Philip K Dick

Philip K Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American science fiction writer. He lived in Berkeley, in the San Francisco Bay area, for some times. He wrote many novels (like The Man in the High Castle, UBIK or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) short stories and essays. Several of his stories have been adapted for the big screen: Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly and Minority Report.

Homage to Philip K Dick - Oil painting (60 cm x 50 cm) by Benoit Philippe

Rather than painting “another view of the Golden Bridge”, I wanted to make a playful work. This is why I patterned the sky with Space Invaders and there is also a portrait of Philip K Dick hidden somewhere (I let you find it – click on the picture to enlarge it).

For the Space Invaders, I made a printing block.

I first tried to use small foam square that are used as spacer for card making. This did not work well as it was difficult to line-up the squares.

I then made a printing block with some cardboard. It was not perfect but gave me enough to fill the gaps and paint each individual Space Invader with a small brush. The main issue was that when I cut the strips of cardboard with a sharp blade, it created an edge on each side. As the strip was not totally flat, the imprint gave me only the outline in some places.


This painting is part of the series I painted for my Californian Dream Exhibition.