Shot on Goal

About the Work

Shot on Goal is the suite's purest burst of sport. On a sunlit training pitch a striker in red has just let fly, and the blue-clad keeper is horizontal — arms at full reach, boots off the ground — as defenders wheel and two players in yellow break toward the rebound. Behind the action sweeps a glass pavilion under a winged white roof, a colossal golden trophy sculpture rising at its heart, and behind that the North Shore peaks stand snow-lined under a mackerel sky lettered 'Vancouver 2026'.

Where the other paintings honour the crowd, this one honours the craft. Pius freezes the half-second every fan holds their breath for, then dresses the horizon in mountains, so that the game's smallest drama and the setting's grandest scale share a single frame.

Process & Technique

Acrylic on coarse board, the figures are caught in urgent, single-pass strokes — the keeper's dive is literally one sweep of the knife, later sharpened at glove and boot. The pitch is layered in five greens dragged horizontally for mown texture, while the pavilion and trophy behind are painted softer and paler, pinning all the canvas's hard focus to the ball.