Ile Royale (Salut Islands)
Ile Royale is the island featured in the pseudo autobiographical novel, Papillon. It is one of two tiny islands lying off the coast French Guyana, just north of Cayenne. Now an expensive fishing resort, it was once a maximum security prison.
The weather here is sultry and oppressive, and one feels that the prison guards must have suffered almost as much as their wards.
This painting shows the hotel - formerly the prison governor's abode - peeping its head above the damp, omnipresent verdure.
(Watercolour - 15 x 11" / 38 x 28cm)