Photo of artist James Aldridge in front of Restaurant Commission
Cold Mouth Prayer is a panoramic new painting, specially commissioned for Tate Modern’s Restaurant. Influenced by Renaissance landscape painting and nineteenth-century French scenic wallpaper, the artist explores his interest in the natural world as well as the ideas and imagery surrounding extreme heavy metal music. In this seductive landscape, crows exhale smoke in a scene rich in decorative flowers, yet loaded with sinister overtones.