Bo Peep is from the fairy tale The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.  This painting Bo Peep is all grown up, she has been elevated from a cheap ceramic object from my mantelpiece by subtly changing the glaze into Celadon Green. Celadon green was once considered so beautiful that only royalty could look at it. Though the name celadon is French, for centuries the colour was only known by the Chinese as mi se, which means ‘mysterious colour.” The word Celadon first appeared in France in the 17th century and that it is named after the shepherd Celadon in Honoré d’Urfé’s French pastoral romance, L’Astrée (1627), who wore pale green ribbons. Bo Peep, is now depicted as older and stronger, she is now accompanied by a much more powerful ‘Cappamore Ram’, an Irish souvenir that stands next to Bo Peep. The painting itself is pure artifice, the mat surface fakes the impression of a shiny glaze, it references collage within its dropped shadow, but it is just paint, which depicts a future orientated projection of Bo Peeps defiant coming of age. The Shepherdess now wears the colours of the Shepherd.