Spirit of place.


oil on paper. 68x75cms. 


oil on paper.68x75cms


oil on paper. 68x75cms


oil on paper. 68x75cms


oil on paper. 69x100cms

 My garden is coming alive:the shadows are not strong yet in the sunlight and even on overcast days there is more light. I have a trove of photographs, mostly black and white, which I trawl through when I think that the landscape is exerting too much of a pull. I refer to paintings history for the same reason and it is not a contradiction because I know that I could easily be overwhelmed by what the garden or the fields look like and that is not what I want might painting to become. I do though sail perilously close at times. There is so much detail and so much expanse, too much really and it requires an effort to try to isolate and develop the essentials. So I ask what am I looking at, what am I seeing, what sense can I make of it? Let me not lose sight of the fact that after all is said and done it is paint on a flat surface, a place where thinking can take place and have a visual form and be read as such. Where additions and subtractions bring about a determination. Another reality and I hope, a valid one.

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