Desmond Morris
(b. 1928)
 

Desmond John Morris FLS hon. caus. (born 24 January 1928) is an English zoologist, ethologist and surrealist painter, as well as a popular author in human sociobiology. He is known for his 1967 book The Naked Ape, and for his television programmes such as Zoo Time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmond_Morris

The Arena
1976
Oil on canvas
61 x 91 cm
Tate
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/morris-the-arena-t07646

 

The Arena is one of a series of paintings of about the same size, painted by Morris while living in Oxford in the 1970s. In these an assembly of what seem to be small abstract figures or microbes, which he called 'biomorphs', perform some unexplained ritual, often with some apparent sexual content. Here, a number of these figures appear to stand around in a circle, while others stand in the middle. Two figures may be in confrontation, like boxers in a ring, one (or maybe two) of them looking like two penises, painted bright red, while the other, which also might be two figures on top of each other, points a tall head, again looking like a penis. Morris painted this series without preliminary drawings, working on the canvas looking through a magnifying glass, and constructing the figures directly. The references are clearly to the sexual behaviour of imaginary micro-organisms that are comparable in an undefined way to some human routines.