Dylan canvases unveiled in London art show

(AFP PHOTO/Carl Court)

A collection of Bob Dylan paintings billed as the US musician's first works on canvas went on show Thursday, promoted with typically inscrutable comments by the legendary star.

"Bob Dylan on Canvas" at the Halcyon Gallery in London's upmarket Mayfair district includes pieces with price tags ranging from 95,000-450,000 pounds (150,000-700,000 dollars, 110,000-510,000 euros).

"I just draw what's interesting to me, and then I paint it. Rows of houses, orchard acres, lines of tree trunks, could be anything," the musician said in notes for the collection.

"I can take a bowl of fruit and turn it into a life and death drama."

The gallery said the collection "witnesses the culmination of his artistic progression" from his Drawn Blank Series, a show which included a stop in London in 2008, from drawings to works on paper and now finally to canvas.

"The Bob Dylan on Canvas exhibition signifies an end to this chapter in his artistic career as he moves forward from The Drawn Blank Series and onto the next phase," the gallery said.

Dylan added: "Women are power figures, so I depict them that way. I can find people to paint in mobile home communities. I could paint bourgeois people too.

"I'm not trying to make social comment or fulfill somebody's vision and I can find subject matter anywhere. I guess in some way that comes out of the folk world that I came up in."

The London show opens to the public on February 13 and runs until April 10.