José Carreras - tenor
(Birmingham Symphony Hall Collection)

This is a very emotional painting, but despite the swirling color, José Carreras's characteristically outstretched hands give it great stability, like the base of a pyramid. The eye is drawn up to the apex of the pyramid, just in front of his open mouth. We expect at any moment to be able to hear that powerful voice.

The reds symbolize not only the passion we associate with Spanish culture, but life -and death. In 1987 José Carreras survived his struggle with leukemia to sing again. This painting was commissioned in 1995 for a concert in aid of his International Leukemia Foundation. But, uncannily, my wife, the American cellist Vivian King, was herself in hospital at that time with acute leukemia. José's voice gave courage and inspiration to us both, as Puccini's arias from Tosca and La Boheme, or Franck's Panis Angelicas rang out in her hospital room and in my studio.

So this painting was made with many tears, signed on the day Vivian received new bright-red bone-marrow, a day of hope that alas, was not to be fulfilled.