History:

I did this painting in Greece, during a phase I was contemplaing the poetry of Odysseas Elytis, as well as the art of Salvador Dali!
Acrylics were used, in rather a frivolous (almost automatic) fashion, without much thinking.

The idea of the clock was influenced by a (well-known) painting by Salvador Dali, which was... miles ahead of me in talent (of course)! :-) Ah well, aspiring to become a... Greek disciple of Dali didn't last very long; but while it lasted, produced some unusual results.

This painting was also proved somewhat... prophetic, many years later, when I had become a winter swimmer!  (and also got very fascinated with under-water life) ;)

Semantics:

The cat was a sacred animal in antiquity, particularly for Egyptians, whose religion still survives today in certain modern forms, such as the "Isis Fellowship".
Through the figure of the cat (in the painting) an entire universe is revealled, which is both under the sea as well as in the sky; where Time (the clock) is flattened, or reduced to vegetation, that replaced the arms of the clock in the sea-bottom. The mermaid, the seven-leaved underwater tree-branch, the highway full of sea-weed, the ascending slope towards a woman ready to jump into the sea, the octopus who listens to the conversation of two fishes, the human diver's burning head whose arms are waving (or dancing), are all... elements of pure wild imagination, without any "logical content", at all ! :-))