Lucky Seven

Four dots above the line. Three below. Seven.

Ask almost anyone, anywhere, to name a lucky number and they will say seven. Seven seas, seven days, seven colours in the light. It is the one superstition the whole world seems to agree on.

A domino carries the same hope in a smaller way. It is the tile you want to draw, the one that finishes the run, the one that turns a game. This painting puts the two together — a single terra red tile on a hand-sponged brown and cream ground, counted out four and three. Nothing else on the canvas. No horizon, no pattern, no second subject. Just the number, given room to sit.

The tile is built up in textured paste before any colour goes on, so it stands proud of the canvas. The dots are laid by hand in ink black, which is why no two are quite the same circle, and the line between the halves is bare canvas left unpainted.

Hang it where a decision gets made — a desk, a hallway, above a table people sit around. 60 x 50 cm, acrylic on stretched canvas, finished in clear varnish. One of one. It already exists, it was not made to order, and there is no second copy.