Oil and wax on cotton duck. "Loose Ends" seems to occupy a middle ground between abstraction and figuration. It is composed of a series of motifs showing tunnels and corridors, set out in a linear fashion. The sense of depth suggested by the recession of the passages and doorways is negated by the fact that they lead only to the surface of the painting. Beattie's interest in organising his paintings around compartmentalised sections began in the mid 1980s, when he had to substitute a group of drawings for a larger painting in an exhibition. The title does not refer directly to anything within the work, but was chosen for what Beattie calls its "poetic connection".
