NUMINOUS LANDSCAPE

Studio Update

25th June 2023

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New images have been very slow to emerge this year. My focus has been upon developing a painting style with a very different working method, compared to the ink and pastel pieces. Something that feels more immediately expressive, in contrast to the very labour intensive act of mark making and line drawing. It was also my intention that the new way of painting would evolve to a larger scale, as most of my work to date has been fairly small. Making multiple images at the same time has enabled me to experiment in ways I otherwise might not have, but recently I have had the sense that there are too many on the go, and perhaps it is now necessary to focus on only a handful of images at any one time.

I have continued to emphasise building up thin layers of paint using various mediums (gels, glazing liquids), and a key element of the learning has been about knowing when to say "enough!" Some of these images have well in excess of 20 layers, and I have approached it by deciding to always take the risk of seeing what will happen next, even when there have been times when it seemed the piece could be considered finished. What will a different colour do to the existing layers? How about a coat of glazing liquid before the next paint layer? Endless options.

With this image I finally achieved the glassy appearance I was looking for, and I think that the mountain area is done now.

My thinking was that in this way I could experiment a lot with just a few pieces, finding out about many different permutations of the materials, and in a relatively economical way. At times it has very much felt like doing battle, 'The War of Art' to use Steven Pressfield's phrase. Encountering all of my own fears and resistances to keeping going. Will these paintings ever been finished? It has been about finding the 1000 ways in which it doesn't work. Now what I really want is to finish these, and start afresh with new surfaces, and a sense that I know how I will approach them.

The piece above has changed so many times. It started life as monochromatic, and has now become the vehicle for testing iridescent paints, such as silver, and pearl, which feature in the area that is not the mountain shapes.

I really enjoy all the rich hues of blue here (above), and the smooth texture of the mountain. It looks very different depending upon where the light is coming from, and the angle at which it is viewed.

Finding out how the paint behaves on canvas compared with wood as a surface, has also been a key element of this period. My sense is that the wood offers something more definite, a little stronger in appearance, probably due in part to its physical presence as a more solid object, as well as the qualities of its surface. The canvas is a little more forgiving, and it is easier to build up the layers in an even way. These two images are in their very early stages.

And finally...

It has been my intention to resume working in ink, pastel, and pencil on paper, because the mood of these works is so very different, and still forms a really important part of what my art is about.

At the halfway point of the year I would say that this next six month period is for producing, and not being concerned with, or distracted by new experiments. Making quite a lot of images is now the way to develop and refine. There are a couple of other works in progress not shown here, including a commissioned painting responding to a place that is of special personal significance, which will live somewhere in the valley's of south Wales. I look forward to sharing this with you in due course.

Thanks for reading. See you next time.