Although born in Hastings in the south-east of England, John Golding moved with his family to Mexico while still a child. As he came of age he found a fertile creative environment around him in Mexico City. He was able to mix with a circle of writers and artists including Leonora Carrington, Luis Buñuel and Octavio Paz, with whom he formed lasting bonds. During this formative period Golding was also introduced to the art of the Mexican Muralist movement particularly José Clemente Orozco whose painting left an indelible mark on his own practice as painter. “Orozco was my greatest source of inspiration, and I still believe he is one of the giants of the twentieth century” Golding reflected, “One of the features of Orozco’s art is the way in which his figures all seem to be flayed in some way, they wear their skeletons on the outside like armour, although it is an armour that is useless and he mostly sees humanity as doomed.” [John Golding interviewed by Richard Wollheim, Visions of the Modern, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994) p.338] As this statement shows, Orozco’s worldview, as much as his figurative style, became profoundly influential to Golding. This reached him as part of a wide network of influences related to Mexican culture. Native American and pre-Colombian symbolism subtly weaves it way into Golding’s earliest work where dry walls, feathers, head dresses, and sculptural forms tentatively appear. Small Totem Group embodies many of the key characteristics of Golding’s early work. Darkness and a sense of ‘humanity as doomed’ may be the initial impact of the work. However, upon closer inspection a seated figure emerges accented with soft effusions of vibrant colour. Reds, blues, oranges, and purples, in a constantly shifting spectrum of hues, lift the figure from its inky background. The figure’s knees also suggest the undulations of of landscape as much as limbs, while the rectilinear frame which adds depth and orientates the figure in space can equally be viewed as a cartographic abstraction of a landscape. By 1962, Golding would have had the opportunity to view recent work by Francis Bacon in both New York and London who used a similar device; the recurrence of a box like frame here may be evidence of Golding drawing inspiration from his famed contemporary. The work’s title suggests an object of non-Christian Mexican spirituality helped shape Golding’s figurative approach, but this is one of the last major figurative paintings he would complete. Around 1966 he made decisive step into abstraction, rejecting all outer trace of the human form. Yet bodies remained the driving forces behind his work. Considering this shift later in life, he said “the body is always there in my work”. It is “what my paintings are about”. The bright white pigment which forms the skeletal structure of Small Totem Group, and acts as a carrier for colour, reappears in Golding’s later abstracts. White light structures his later colour field paintings, and consequently works like Small Totem Group illuminate is technique’s origins and the artist’s working method, helping to make visible the continuities that unite Golding’s unique vision of the world.